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LETTER 



PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



L E T T E E 



PEOPLE OF THE rXTTEI) STATE; 



MATTEE or SLATEKY. 



THEOIKAE FAJLKEB. 



BOSTOX: 

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£"4 



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boston: 

printed by freeman and bolles, 

DEVONSHIRE STREET. 



LETTER. 



Fellow-Citizens of the United States : 

It may seem strange and presumptuous that an 
obscure man, known even by name to but very few 
in the land, should write you a pubhc letter on a 
theme so important as this of Slavery. You may 
call it foohsh and rash. Say that if you will ; per- 
haps you are right. I have no name, no office, no 
rank amongst men, which entitle my thoughts to 
your consideration. I am but one of the undistin- 
guished millions, who live unnoticed, and die re- 
membered only by their family and friends ; humble 
and obscure. If any of the famous men accus- 
tomed to s'vvay the opinions of the political parties 
and the theological sects, had suitably treated this 
matter, showing you the facts and giving manly 
counsel, I should not have presumed to open my 
mouth. It is their silence which prompts me to 
speak. I am no aspirant for office or for fame ; 
have nothing to gain by your favor ; fear nothing 
from your frown. In writing this Letter I obey no 
idle caprice, but speak from a sense of Duty, in 
1* 



O LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

submission to the voice of Conscience. I love my 
Country, and my Kind ; it is Patriotism and Human- 
ity which bid me speak. I ask you to read and 
consider, not to read without your prejudices, but 
with them, with them all ; then to consider, to de- 
cide, to act, as you may or must. I address myself 
to no party, to no sect, but speak to you, as Amer- 
icans and as Men, addressing my thoughts to all 
the Citizens of the Slave States and the Free. 

I am to speak of a great evil, long established, 
wide spread, deeply rooted in the laws, the usages 
and the ideas of the people. It affects directly the 
welfare of three millions of men, one sixth part of 
the nation : they are Slaves. It affects directly 
half the States : they are Slave-holders. It has 
a powerful influence on the other half, though more 
subtle and unseen. It affects the industry, laws, 
morals, and entire prosperity of the whole nation 
to a degree exceeding the belief of men not famil- 
iar with its history and its facts. The evil increases 
Avith a rapid growth ; with advancing flood it gains 
new territory, swells with larger volume ; its deadly 
spray and miasma gradually invade all our institu- 
tions. The whole nation is now legally pledged to 
its support ; the public legislation for the last sixty 
years has made Slavery a federal institution. Your 
revenue boats and your navy are bound to support 
it ; your army acts for its defence. You have 
fought wars, spending money and shedding blood, 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 7 

to gain new soil wherein to plant the tree of Slavery. f 

You have established it in your districts and your 

territories. You have recently annexed to your 

realm a new territory as large as the Kingdom of 

France, and extended Slavery over that soil whence i 

a semi-barbarous people had expelled it with igno- f 

miny. You are now fighting a war in behalf of 

Slavery, a war carried on at great cost of money 

and of men. The national capital is a great slave 

market ; in her^shambles your Brothers are daily 

offered for sale. Your flag floats over the most 

wicked commerce on earth — the traffic in men 

and women. Citizens of the United States breed 

youths and maidens for sale in the market, as the 

grazier oxen and swine. 

The Bey of Tunis has abolished Slavery as a dis- 
grace to Africa and the jNlahometan religion. Your 
Constitution of the United States supports this insti- 
tution, and binds it upon the free States ; the South 
fondly clings to it ; the free men of the North bend 
suppliant necks to this yoke. With a few exceptions, 
your Representatives and Senators in Congress give 
it their countenance and their vote ; their hand and 
tlieir heart. Your great and famous men are 
pledged to this, or their silence practically pur- 
chased. Seven Presidents of your Christian De- 
mocracy have been holders of slaves ; three only 
free from that taint. You will soon be called on 
to elect another Slave-holder to sit in the presi- 



b LETTER OX SLAVERY. 

dential chair, and rule over a republic contain- 
ing twenty millions of men. 

In all the Union there is no legal asylum for the 
fugitive slave ; no soil emancipates his hurrying 
feet. The States which allow no Slavery within 
their limits legally defend the Slave-holder : catch 
and retain the man fleeing for his manhood and his 
life. 

I cannot call upon the political leaders of the 
nation. You know what they look for, and how 
they would treat a letter exposing a national evil, 
and talking of Truth and Justice. I do not address 
you as members of the political parties ; they have 
their great or petty matters to deal with, differing 
in regard to free trade or protection, but are 
united in one policy as it respects Slavery. Dema- 
gogues of both parties will play their little game, 
and on your shoulders ride into fame, and ease, 
and wealth, and power, and noise. The sects also 
have their special work, and need not be addressed 
on the subject of Slavery — of human wrong. 

I speak to the People, not as Sectarians, Pro- 
testant or Catholic — not as Democrats or Whiss, 
but as Americans and as Men. I solemnly believe 
if you all knew the facts of American Slavery and 
its effects, as I know them, that you would end the 
evil before a twelvemonth had passed by. I take 
it for granted that you love Justice and Truth, I 
write to you, having confidence in your integrity 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 



and love of men, having confidence also in the 

dem 

rest. 



democratic ideas on which a government should 



In what I write you will doubtless find mis- 
takes — errors of fact or of reasoning. I do not 
ask to be screened from censure even for what no 
diligence could wholly escape, only that you will 
not reject nor refuse to consider the truth of fact 
and of reasoning which is presented to you. A 
few mistakes in figures or in reasoning will not 
affect the general argument of this Letter. Read 
with what prejudice you may, but decide and act 
according to Reason and Conscience. 



I. 



STATISTICS AND HISTORY OF SLAVERY. 

I WILL first call your attention to the Statistics 
and History of Slavery. In 1790 there were but 
697,897 Slaves in the Union ; in 1840, 2,487,355. 
At the present day their number probably is not 
far from 3,000,000. In 1790, Mr. Gerry estimated 
their value at $10,000,000 ; in 1840 Mr. Clay fixed 
it at $1,200,000,000. They are owned by a pop- 
ulation of perhaps about 300,000 persons, and repre- 
sented by about 100,000 voters. 

At the time of the Declaration of Independence 
Slavery existed in all the States ; it gradually re- 
ceded from the North. In the religious Colonies 
of New England it was always unpopular and 
odious. It was there seen and felt to be utterly 
inconsistent with the ideas and spirit of their in- 
stitutions, their Churches and their State itself. 
After the Revolution therefore it speedily disap- 
peared — here perishing by default, there abolished 
by statute. Thus it successively disappeared from 
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 11 

New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. By 
the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, involuntary ser- 
vitude, except as a punishment after legal convic- 
tion of crime, was forever prohibited in the North 
West Territory. Thus the new States, formed in 
the Western parallels, were, by the action of the 
federal government, at once cut off from that insti- 
tution. Besides, they were mainly settled by men 
from the Eastern States, who had neither habits 
nor principles which favored Slavery. Thus Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, 
have been without any legal slaves from the be- 
ginning. 

In the South the character of the people was 
different ; their manners, their social and political 
ideas were unlike those of the North. The South- 
ern States were mainly colonies of adventurers, 
rather than establishments of men who for con- 
science' sake fled to the wilderness. Less pains 
Avere taken Avith the education — intellectual, moral, 
and religious — of the people. Religion never held 
so prominent a place in the consciousness of the 
mass as in the sterner and more austere colonies of 
the North. In the Southern States — New Jersey, 
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, the Carohnas, and 
Georgia, — Slavery easily found a footing at an 
early day. It was not at all repulsive to the ideas, 
the institutions and habits of Georgia and South 
Carolina. The other Southern States protested 
against it ; — they never. 



12 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

Consequences follow causes ; it is not easy to 
avoid the results of a first principle. The Northern 
States, in all their constitutions and social structure, 
consistently and continually tend to Democracy — 
the government of all, for all, and by all ; — to equal- 
ity before the State and its Laws ; to moral and po- 
litical ideas of universal application. In the mean- 
time the Southern States, in their constitutions and 
social structure, as consistendy tend to Oligarchy — 
the government over all, by a few, and for the 
sake of that few ; — to privilege, favoritism, and 
class-legislation ; to conventional limitations ; to the 
rule of force, and inequality before the law. In 
such a state of things when Slavery comes, it is 
welcome. In 1737, South Carolina and Georgia 
refused to accept the federal Constitution unless the 
right of importing Slaves was guaranteed to them 
for twenty years. The new States formed in the 
Southern parallels — Kentucky, Tennessee, Alaba- 
ma, Mississippi — retaining the ideas and habits of 
their parents, kept also the institution of Slavery. 

At the time of forming the Federal Constitution 
some of the southern statesmen were hostile to 
Slavery, and would gladly have got rid of it. Eco- 
nomical considerations prevailed in part, but politi- 
cal and moral objections to it extended yet more 
widely. The Ordinance of 1787, the Avork mainly 
of the same man who drafted the Declaration of 



LETTER OX SLANT:Ry. 13 

Independence, passed with little opposition. The 
proviso for surrendering fugitive slaves came from 
a northern hand. Subsequently opposition to Slav- 
ery, in the north and the south, became less. The 
cuhure of cotton, the wars in Europe creating a 
demand for the productions of American agricul- 
ture, had rendered slave labor more valuable. The 
day of our own oppression was more distant and 
forgotten. So in 1S02, when Congress purchased 
from Georgia the western part of her territory, it 
was easy for the South to extend Slavery over that 
virgin soil. In 1S03, Louisiana was purchased 
from France ; then, or in 1S04, when it was or- 
ganized into two territories, it would have been 
easy to apply the Ordinance of 17S7. and prevent 
Slavery from extending beyond the original thirteen 
States. But though some provisions restricting 
Slavery were made, the ideas of that Ordinance 
were forgotten. Since that time five new States 
have been formed out of territory acquired since 
the revolution : — Louisiana, Missouri. Arkansas, 
Florida, Texas, all Slave States, — the last two with 
constitutions aimmg to make Slavery perpetual. The 
last of these was added to the Union on the 226. 
of December, 1S4-5. two hundred and twenty-five 
years after the day when the Forefathers first set 
foot on Plymouth Rock ; while the sons of the 
Pilgrims were eating and drinking and making 
merry, the deed of Annexation was completed, and 
3 



14 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

Slavery extended over nearly 400,000 square miles 
of new territory, whence the semi-barbarous Mexi- 
cans had driven it out. 

Slavery might easily have been jjbolished at the 
time of the Declaration of Independence. Indeed 
in 1774 the Continental Congress, in their celebrated 
" non-importation Agreement," resolved never to 
import or purchase any slaves after the last of De- 
cember in that year. In 1775, they declare in a 
"Report" that it is not possible "for men who 
exercise their reason to believe that the divine 
Author of our existence intended a part of the hu- 
man race to hold an absolute property in and un- 
bounded power over others." Indeed the Declara- 
tion itself is a denial of the national right to allow 
the existence ol'Slavery : " We hold these truths to 
be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain un- 
alienable rights, that among these are [the right to] 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; — that to 
secure these rights governments are instituted 
among men deriving their just powers from the 
consent of the governed." 

But the original draft of this paper contained a 
condemnation yet more explicit : " He [the king of 
England] has waged cruel war against human nature 
itself; violating its most sacred rights of life and 
iberty in the persons of a distant people who never 



LETTER ON SLAVERY, 15 

offended him ; captivating and carrying them into 
slavery. ...Determined to keep open a market where 
men should be bought and sold, he has prostitu- 
ted his negative for suppressing every legislative 
attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable 
commerce." This clause, says its author him- 
self, " was struck out in compliance to South 
Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted 
to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on 
the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our 
northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender 
under these censures ; for though their people have 
very few slaves themselves, yet they had been 
pretty considerable carriers of them to others." 

These were not the sentiments of a single enthu- 
siastic young Republican. Dr. Rush, in the Conti- 
nental Congress, wished " the Colonies to discourage 
Slavery and encourage the increase of the free inhab- 
itants." Another member of the American con- 
gress declared, in 1779, " Men are by nature free;" 
" the right to be free can never be alienated." In 
1776, Dr. Hopkins, the head of the New England 
divines, declared that " Slavery is, in every in- 
stance, Avrong, unrighteous and oppressive ; a very 
great and crying sin." 

In the articles of Confederation, adopted in 1778, 
no provision is made for the support of Slavery ; 
none for the delivery of fugitives. Slavery is not 



16 I-ETTER ON SLAVERY. 

once referred to in that document. The General 
Government had nothing to do with it. " If any 
slave elopes to those states where slaves are free," 
said Mr. Madison in 1787, " he becomes emanci- 
pated by their laws." 

In the Convention of 1787, which drafted the pre- 
sent Constitution of the United States, this matter 
of Slavery was abundantly discussed ; it was the 
great obstacle in the way of forming the Union, as 
now of keeping it. But for the efforts of South 
Carolina, it is probable Slavery would have been 
abolished by the Constitution. The South claimed 
the right of sending Representatives to Congress on 
account of their Slaves. Mr. Patterson, of New 
Jersey, contended that as the slaves had no repre- 
sentative or vote at home, their masters could not 
claim additional votes in Congress on account of the 
slaves. Nearly all the speakers in that Convention, 
except the members from South Carolina and Geor- 
gia, referred to the slave-trade with horror. Mr. 
Gerry, of JMassachusetts, declared in the Conven- 
tion, that it was " as humiliating to enter into com- 
pact with the slaves of the Southern States, as with 
the horses and mules of the North." It was con- 
tended, that if slaves Avere men, then they should be 
taxed as men, and have their vote as men ; if mere 
property, they should not entitle their owners to a 
vote, more than other property. It might be proper 
to tax slaves, " because it had a tendency to dis- 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 17 

courage Slavery, but to take them into account in 
giving representatives tended to encourage the 
slave trade, and to make it the interest of the States 
to continue that infamous traffic." It was said, 
that " we had just assumed a place among inde- 
pendent nations, in consequence of our opposition 
to the attempts of Great Britain to enslave us ; that 
this opposition was grounded upon the preservation 
of those rights to which God and Nature had enti- 
tled us, not in particular, but in common with all 
the rest of mankind. That we had appealed to the 
Supreme Being for his assistance, as the God of 
heaven, who could not but approve our efforts 
to preserve the rights which he had imparted 
to his creatures ; that now, when we had scarcely 
risen from our knees from supplicating his aid and 
protection in forming our government over a free 
people, — a government formed pretendedly on the 
principles of liberty, and for its preservation, — in 
that government to have a provision, not only putting 
it out of its power to restrain or prevent the slave 
trade, even encouraging that most infamous traffic, 
and giving States power and influence in the Union 
in proportion as they cruelly and wantonly sport 
with the rights of their fellow creatures, — ought to 
be considered as a solemn mockery of, and insult 
to, that God, whose protection we had then im- 
plored, and could not fail to hold us up in detesta- 
2# 



18 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

tion, and render us contemptible to every true 
friend of liberty in the world." 

Luther Martin, the attorney-general of Maryland, 
thought it " inconsistent with the principles of the 
Revolution, and dishonorable to the American 
character," to have the importation of slaves allow- 
ed by the Constitution. 

The Northern States, and some of the Southern, 
wished to abolish the slave trade at once. Mr. 
Pinckney, of South Carolina, thought that State 
" would never accede to the Constitution, if it 
prohibits the slave trade ;" she '' would not stop 
her importation of slaves in any short time." Said 
Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, " the people of 
the Carolinas and Georgia, will never be such fools 
as to give up so important an interest." " Religion 
and humanity have nothing to do with this question. 
Interest alone is the governing principle with na- 
tions." In apportioning taxes, he thought three 
slaves ought to be counted as but one free man ; 
while in apportioning representatives, his colleagues, 
— Messrs. Butler and Pinckney, — declared, " the 
Blacks ought to stand on an equality with the 
Whites." Mr. Pinckney would " make Blacks 
equal to Whites in the ratio of representation ;" he 
went further, — he would have "some security 
against an emancipation of slaves ;" and, says Mr. 
Madison, " seemed to wish some provision should 
be included [in the Constitution] in favor of pro-. 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 19 

perty in slaves." " South Carolina and Georgia" 
said Mr. Pinckney, " cannot do without slaves ;" 
" The importation of slaves would be for the inter- 
est of the whole Union ; the more slaves, the more 
produce to employ the carrying trade, the more 
consumption also." 

On the other hand, Mr. Bedford of Delaware, 
thought " South Carolina was puffed up with her 
wealth and her negroes." Mr. Madison, cool and 
far-sighted, always referring to first principles, was 
unwilling to allow the importation of slaves till 
ISOS : — " So long a term will be more dishonorable 
to the American character than to say nothing 
about it in the constitution." 

Mr. Williamson of North Carolina, in 1783, 
thought " slaves an incumbrance to society," and 
was " both in opinion and practice against Slavery." 
Col. Mann, of Virginia, in the Convention, called 
the slave trade an " infernal traffic," and said that 
*' Slavery discourages arts and manufactures ; the 
poor despise labor when performed by slaves." 
" They produce the most pernicious effect on man- 
ners. Every inaster of slaves is born a petty 
tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a 
country." Mr. Dickinson, of Delaware, thought it 
" inadmissible on every principle of honor and 
safety that the importation of slaves should be 
authorized." Gouverneur JNIorris, of Pennsylvania 
" never would concur in upholding domestic 



20 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

Slavery." It was a •' nefarious institution ;" " the 
curse of Heaven was on the States where it pre- 
vailed ! " Are the slaves men ? " then make them 
citizens, and let them vote. Are they property ? 
Why then is no other property included [in the 
ratio of representation] ? The houses in this city 
[Philadelphia] are worth more than all the wretched 
slaves who cover the rice-swamps of South Car- 
olina." ^Ir. Gerry declared Ave " ought to be care- 
ful not to give any sanction to it." 

All the North was at first opposed to Slavery 
and the slave trade. Both parties seemed obstinate ; 
the question of " Taxes on exports " and of " Nav- 
igation laws " remained to be decided. Gouverneur 
jMorris recommended that the whole subject of 
Slavery might be referred to a committee " includ- 
ing the clauses relating to the taxes on exports, 
and to the navigation laws. These things may 
form a bargain among the Northern and Southern 
States." Says Luther Martin, " I found the East- 
ern States, notwithstanding their aversion to Slavery, 
were very willing to indulge the Southern States, 
at least with a temporary liberty to prosecute the 
slave trade, provided the Southern Slates would in 
their turn gratify them by laying no restriction on 
navigation acts." The North began to understand 
if the contemplated navigation laws should be 
enacted, that as Mr. Grayson afterwards said, " all 
the produce of the Southern States will be carried 



LETTER ON" 3LAVERY. 21 

by the Northern States on their own terms, which 
must be high.'' Mr. Clymer, of Pennsylvania, 
declared, " The Western and Middle States will be 
ruined, if not enabled to defend themselves against 
foreign regulations ; " will be ruined if they do not 
have some navigation laws giving Americans an ad- 
vantage over foreign vessels. Mr. Gorham, of 
Massachusetts, said " The Eastern States had no 
motives to union but a commercial one." The 
proffered compromise would favor their commercial 
interests. It was for the commercial interest of 
the South said Mr. Pinckney, to have no restric- 
tions upon commerce, but " considering the loss 
brought on the Eastern States by the Revolution, 
and their liberal conduct towards the views of South 
Carolina, [in consenting to allow Slavery and the 
importation of slaves,] he thought that no fetters 
should be imposed on the power of making com- 
mercial regulations, and his constituents would be 
reconciled to the liberality.*' So the North took 
the boon, and winked at the '' infernal traffic." 
When the question was put, there were in favor of 
the importation of slaves, Georgia, the two Caro- 
linas and Maryland, with New Hampshire, Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut. Opposed to it were 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia I 
Subsequently Mr. Ames, in the Massachusetts Con- 
vention for the adoption of the Constitution, said 
the Northern States '• have srreat advantages bv ii. 



22 LETTER OX SLAVERY. 

in respect of navigation;" in the Virginia Conven- 
tion Patrick Henry said, " Tobacco will always 
make our peace with them," for at that time Cotton 
was imported from India, not having become a 
staple of the South. When the article which binds 
the free States to dehver np the fugitive slaves, came 
to be voted on, it Avas a new feature in American 
legislation ; not hinted at in the " articles of con- 
federation ; " hostile to the well known principles 
of the common law of England — which always fa- 
vors hberty — and the usages and principles of mod- 
ern civilized nations. Yet new as it was and hostile, 
it seems not a word was said against it in the Con- 
vention. It " was agreed to, nem. con.'''' Yet 
" The Northern delegates," says Mr. Madison, 
" owing to their particular scruples on the subject 
of Slavery, did not choose the word slave to be men- 
tioned." In the conventions of the several States 
it seems no remonstrance was made to this article. 
Luther Martin returning home, said to the House 
of Delegates in Maryland, " At this time we do 
not generally hold this commerce in so great abhor- 
rence as we have done ; when our liberties were at 
Slake, we warmly felt for the common rights of 
men ; the danger being thought to be past, we are 
daily growing more insensible to their rights." 

When the several States came to adopt the Con- 
stitution, some hesitancy was shown at tolerating 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 23 

the slave trade or even Slavery itself. In the Mas- 
sachusetts convention, Mr. Neal would not *' favor 
the making merchandise of the bodies of men." 
Gen. Thompson exclaimed, "shall it be said, that 
after we have established our own independence and 
freedom Ave make slaves of others ?" Washington 
has immortalized himself, '* but he holds those in 
slaverv Avho have as good a risiht to be free as he 
has." All parties deprecated the slave trade in 
most pointed terms. " Slavery was generally de- 
tested." It was thought that the neAv States could 
not claim the sad privilege of their parents, that the 
South itself would soon hate and abolish it. " Slav- 
ery is not smitten by an apoplexy," said IMr. Dawes, 
" yet it has received a mortal womid and will die 
of consumption." This reflection, with the " To- 
bacco " and "Navigation laws " turned the scale. 
Patrick Henry was no son of New England, but 
knew well on what hinges her political morality 
might turn, by what means and Avhich way. 

In the New York Convention, ]Mr. Smith could 
"not see any rule by which slaves were to be in- 
cluded in the ratio of representation, the very 
operation of it was to give certain privileges to 
men who were so wicked as to keep slaves ;" to 
which ISh. Hamilton replied, that " without this 
indulgence no union could possibly have been 
formed. But . . considering those peculiar advan- 
tages which we derived from them, [the Southern 



24 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

States,] it is entirely just that they should be grati- 
fied. The Southern States possess certain staples, 
tobacco, rice, indigo, &c. which must be capital ob- 
jects in treaties of commerce with foreign nations ; 
and the advantage . . . will be felt in all the States." 

In the Pennsylvania Convention, Mr. Wilson con- 
sidered that the constitution laid the foundation for 
abolishing Slavery out of this country," though the 
period was more distant than he could wish. Yet 
"the New States . . . will be under the control of Con- 
gress in this particular, and slavery will never be 
introduced amongst them ;" " yet the lapse of a 
few years, and congress will have power to exter- 
minate slavery from within our borders." 

In the Virginia convention Gov.Randolph regard- 
ed the slave trade as " infamous" and " detestable." 
Slavery was one of our vulnerable points. " Are 
we not weakened by the population of those whom 
Ave hold in slavery"? he asked. Col. IMason thought 
the trade " diabolical in itself and disgraceful to 
mankind." He would not admit the Southern 
States [Georgia and the Carolinas] into the Union 
unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this 
disgraceful trade." Mr. Tyler thought " nothing 
could justify it." Patrick Henry, who contended 
for Slavery, confessed " Slavery is detested, — we 
feel its fatal effects, — we deplore it with all the 
pity of humanity." " It would rejoice my very 
soul that every one of my fellow-beings was eman- 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 4,^) 

cipated." Said Mr. Johnson, " Slavery has been 
the foundation of that impiety and dissipation which 
have been so much disseminated among our coun- 
trymen. If it were totally abolished it would do 
rjiuch good." 

In the North Carohna Convention it was found 
necessary to apologize for the pro-slavery character 
of the Constitution. j\Ir. Iredell in defence said, 
the matter of Slavery " was regulated with great 
difficulty and by a spirit of concession which it 
would not be prudent to disturb for a good many 
years." " It is probable that all the members rep- 
robated this inhuman tralFic [in slaves], but those 
of South Carolina and Georgia would not consent 
to an immediate prohibition of it." " Were it 
practicable to put an end to the importation of 
slaves immediately, it would give him the greatest 
pleasure." " When the entire abolition of Slavery 
takes place it will be an event which must be pleas- 
ing to every generous mind and every friend of 
human nature." Mr. JMcDowall looked upon the 
slave trade " as a very objectionable part of the 
system." Mr. Goudy did not wish " to be repre- 
sented with negroes." 

In the South Carolina Convention Gen. Pinckney 
admitted that the Carolinas and Georgia were so 
weak that they " could not form a union strong 
enough for the purpose of effectually protecting 
each other ; " it was their policy therefore " to 



26 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

form a close union with the Eastern States who are 
strong ;" the Eastern States had been the greatest 
sufferers in the Revolution, they had " lost every- 
thing but their country and their freedom ;" " we," 
the CaroHnas and Georgia, " should let them, in 
some measure, partake of our prosperity." But 
the union could come only from a compromise ; 
" Ave have secured an unhmited importation of 
negroes for twenty years." " We have obtained 
a right to recover our slaves in Avhatever part of 
America they shall take refuge, which is a right we 
had not before." " We have made the best terras 
for the security of this species of property it was in 
our power to make ; Ave would have made better if 
we could, but on the whole I do not think them 
bad." No one in South Carolina, it seems, thought 
Slavery an Evil. 

Thus the Constitution Avas assented to as " the re- 
sult of accommodation," though containing clauses 
confessedly " founded on unjust principles." The 
North had been false to its avoAved convictions, and 
in return " higher tonnage duties were imposed on 
foreign than on American bottoms," and goods im- 
ported in American vessels " paid ten per cent, less 
duty than the same goods brought in those owned 
by foreigners." The " Navigation laAvs " and the 
" Tobacco " wrought after their kind ; South Caro- 
lina and Georgia had their Avay. The North, said 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 27 

Gouverneur Morris, in the national Convention, for 
the " sacrifice of every principle of right, of every 
impulse of humanity," had this compensation, " to 
bind themselves to march their militia for the de- 
fence of the Southern States, for their defence 
against those very slaves of whom they complain. 
They must supply vessels and seamen in case of 
foreign attack. The legislature will have indefinite 
power to tax them by excises and duties on im- 
ports." 

Still, with many there lingered a vague belief 
that Slavery would soon perish. In the first Con- 
gress Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, admitted that "it 
was an evil habit." Mr. Gerry and JNIr. Madison 
both thought that Congress had " the right to regu- 
late this business," and " if they see proper, to 
make a proposal to purchase all the slaves." But 
the most obvious time for ending the institution 
had passed by ; the feeling of hostility to it grew 
weaker and weaker as the nation became united, 
powerful and rich ; its " mortal Avound " was fast 
getting healed. 



II. 



COKTDITION AND TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 

I WILL next consider the General Condition and 
Treatment of the Slaves themselves. The slave 
is not, theoretically, considered as a Person ; he is 
only a Thing, as much so as an axe or a spade ; 
accordingly he is wholly subject to his master, and 
has no Rights — which are an attribute of Persons 
only, not of Things. All that he enjoys therefore 
is but a Privilege. He may be damaged but not 
wronged. However ill treated he cannot of him- 
self, in his own name and right, bring a formal 
action in any court ; no more than an axe or a 
spade, though his master may bring an action for 
damages. The slave cannot appear as a witness 
when a freeman is on trial. His master can beat, 
maim, mutilate, or mangle him, and the slave has, 
theoretically, no complete and legal redress, practi- 
cally, no redress at all. The master may force 
him to marry or forbid his marriage ; can sell him 
away from wife and children. He can force the 
lover to beat his beloved ; the husband his wife, 
the child his parent. " A slave is one who is in 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 29 

the power of his master, to Avhom he belongs. The 
master may sell him, dispose of his person, his in- 
dustry and his labor ; he can do nothing, possess 
nothing, nor acquire anything but what must be- 
long to his master." No contract between master 
and slave, however solemnly made and attested, 
is binding on tlie master. Is the freeborn child of 
the free man likewise theoretically subject to his 
father ? — natural and instinctive affection prevent 
the abuse of that power. The connection between 
father and child is one of guardianship and recipro- 
cal love, a mutual gain ; that of master and slave 
is founded only on the interest of the owner ; the 
gain is only on the master's side. 

The relation of master and slave begins in vio- 
lence ; it must be sustained by violence — the 
systematic violence of general laws, or the irregu- 
lar violence of individual caprice^ There is no other 
mode of conquering and subjugating a man. Re- 
garding the slave as a thing, " an instrument of 
husbandry," the master gives him the least, and 
takes the most that is possible. He takes all the 
result of the slave's toil, leaving only enough to keep 
him in a profitable working condition. His work 
is the most he can be made to do ; his food, cloth- 
ing, shelter, amusement, the least he can do with. 
" A southern Planter," in his " Notes on Political 
Economy as applicable to the United States," says 



30 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

to his fellow slave-holders: " You own this labor, 
can regulate it, work it many or few hours in the 
day, accelerate it, stimulate it, control it, avoid turn- 
outs and combinations, and pay no wages. You 
can dress it plainly, feed it coarsely and cheap, lodge 
it, on simple forms, as the plantations do, house 
it in cabins costing little." " The slaves live with- 
out beds or houses worth so caUing, or family cares, 
or luxuries, or parade or show ; have no relaxa- 
tions, or whims, or frolics or dissipations ; instead 
of sun to sun, in their hours are worked from day- 
light till nine o'clock at night. Where the free 
man or laborer would require a hundred dollars a 
year for food and clothing alone, the slave can be 
supported for twenty dollars a year, and often is." 
" Let us bestow upon them the worst, the most un- 
healthy and degrading sort of duties and labor." 
Said Mr. Jefferson, " the whole commerce between 
master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the 
most boisterous passions, the most unremitting des- 
potism on the one part, and degrading submission 
on the other." 

The Idea of Slavery is to use a man as a thing, 
against his nature and in opposition to his interests. 
The consequences of such a principle it is impossi- 
ble to escape ; the results of this idea meet us at 
every step. Man is certainly not cruel by nature; 
even in the barbarous state. In our present civiliza^ 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 31 

tion man is far from being brntal. There are many- 
kind and considerate slave-holders whose aim is to 
make their slaves as comfortable and happy as it is 
possible while they are slaves ; men who feel and 
know that Slavery is wrong, and would gladly be 
rid of it ; who arc not consistent with the idea of 
Slavery. Let us suppose, in this argument, there are 
ten thousand such who are heads of families in the 
United States, and ninety thousand of a different 
stamp, men who have at least the average of hu- 
man selfishness.* 

Now under the mildest and most humane of 
masters, Slavery commonly brings intensity of suffer- 
ing. The slave feels that he is a Man, a Person, 
his own Person, born with all a man's unalienable 
rights ; born with the right to life, to liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness. He sees himself cut off 
from these rights, and that too amid the wealth, 
the refinement, and culture of this country and 
this age. He feels his degradation, born a man 
to be treated as a thing, bought and sold, beaten 
as a beast. Here and there is one with a feeble 
nature, with affections disproportionately strong, 
attached to an owner who never claimed all the 
legal authority of master, and this man may not 
desire his freedom. Some hear of the actual 
sufferings of the free blacks, or exaggerated re- 
ports thereof, and fear that by becoming free in 
America they might exchange a well-known evil 



82 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

for a greater or a worse. Others have become so 
debased by their condition that the man is mainly 
silenced in their consciousness, the animal alone 
surviving, contented if well fed and not over- 
worked, and they do not wish to be free. Suppose 
that these three classes, the feeble-minded, the timid, 
and the men overwhelmed and crushed by their 
condition, are as numerous as the humane portion 
of the masters, are one-tenth of the whole, or 
800,000. The rest are conscious of the qualities of a 
man. They desire their freedom, and are kept in 
Slavery only by external force — the systematic force 
of public law, the irregular force of private will. 
The number of this class will be about 2,700,000, 
a greater number than the whole population of the 
colonies in 1776. 

The condition of the majority of the slaves is in- 
deed terrible. They have no Rights, and are to be 
treated not as Men, but only as Things ; this first 
principle involves continual violence and oppression, 
with all the subordinate particulars of their condi- 
tion, which shall now be touched on as briefly as 
possible. A famous man said in public, that his 
" slaves were sleek and fat ; " the best thing he 
could say in defence of his keeping men in bond- 
age. But even this is not always true. Take the 
mass of slaves together, and an abundance of testi- 
mony compels the conviction, that they are misera- 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 33 

bly clad, and suffer bitterly from hunger. So far as 
food, clothing and shelter are concerned, the physi- 
cal condition of the mass of field-slaves, is far worse 
than that of condemned criminals, in the worst 
prison of the United States. House-slaves and me- 
chanics in large towns fare better ; they are under 
the eye of the public. Farm-slaves feel most the 
poignant smart. The plantations are large, the 
dwellings distant, the ear of the public hears not the 
oppressor's violence. " The horse fattens on his 
master's eye," says the proverb ; but the farm- 
slaves are committed mainly to overseers, the Swiss 
of Slavery, whom INIr. Wirt calls " the most abject, 
degraded and unprincipled race." 

Let us pass over the matter of food, clothing, shel- 
ter and toil, to consider other features of their condi- 
tion. They are treated with great cruelty ; often 
branded with a red hot iron on the breast, or the 
shoulder, the arm, the forehead or the cheek, 
though the Roman law forbid it fifteen centuries 
ago. They are disfigured and mutilated, now by 
the madness of anger, then by the jealous malice of 
revenge, their backs and sides scored with the lash, 
or bruised with the " paddle," bear marks of the 
violence needful to subdue manhood still smoul- 
dering in the ashes of the negro slave. Drive Na- 
ture out with whips and brands — she will come 
back. These abuses can be proved from descrip- 
tions of run-aways in the newspapers of the South. 



34 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

The slaveholder's temptation to cruelty is too 
much for common men. His poAver is irresponsi- 
ble. 'T is easy to find a stick if you would beat a 
dog. The lash is always at hand ; if a slave diso- 
beys, — the whip ; if he is idle, — the whip ; . does 
he murmur, — the whip ; • is he sullen and silent, 
— the whip ; is the female coy and reluctant, — ■ 
the whip. Chains and dungeons also are at hand. 
The Slave is a Thing ; judge and jury no friends 
to him. The condition of the Weak is bad enough 
everyAvhere, in Old England, and in New England. 
But when the Strong owns the very Bodies of the 
Weak, making and executing the laws as he will — 
it is not hard to see to what excess their wrongs will 
amount, wrongs which cannot be told. 

It is often said that the evils of Slavery are ex- 
aggerated. This is said by the masters. But the 
story of the victim when told by his oppressor — it 
is well known what that is. The few slaves who 
can tell the story of their wrongs, show that Slavery 
cannot easily be represented as worse than it is. 
Imagination halts behind the fact. The lives of 
Moses Roper, of Lunsford Lane, of Moses Grundy, 
Frederic Douglas, and W. W. Brown, are before 
the public, and prove what could easily be learned 
from the advertisements of Southern newspapers, 
conjectured from the laws of the Southern States, or 
foretold outright from a knowledge of human na- 
ture itself: — that the sufferin2:s of three millions 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 35 

of slaves form a mass of misery which the imagina- 
tion can never reahze, till the eye is familiar Avith 
its terrible details. Governor Giles, of Virginia, 
calls Slavery " a punishment of the highest order." 
And Mr. Preston says, " Happiness is incompatible 
with Slavery." 

In the most important of all relations, that of 
man and wife, neither law nor custom gives protec- 
tion to the slave. Their connection may at any 
moment be dissolved by the master's command, the 
parties be torn asunder, separated forever, husband 
and wife, child and mother ; the infant may be 
taken from its mother's breast, and sold away out 
of her sight and power. The wife torn from her 
husband's arms, forced to the lust of another, for 
the slave is no Person but a Thing. For the chas- 
tity of the female there is no defence ; no more 
than for the chastity of sheep and swine. Many 
are ravished in tender years. So is the last insult, 
and outrage the most debasing, added to this race 
of Americans. By the laws of Louisiana, all child- 
ren born of slaves are reckoned as "natural and 
illegitimate." Marriage is "prostitution" ; sacred 
and permanent neither in the eyes of the churches 
nor the law. The female slave is Avholly in her 
master's power. Mulattoes are more valuable than 
blacks. So in the Slave States Lust now leagues 
with Cupidity, and now acts with singleness of aim. 



36 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

The South is full of mulattoes ; its " best blood flows 
in the veius of the slaves" — masters owning child- 
ren white as themselves. Girls, the children of 
mulattoes, are sold at great price, as food for pri- 
vate licentiousness, or public furniture in houses of 
ill-fame. Under the worst of the Roman emperors 
this outrage was forbidden, and the Prefect of the 
city gave such slaves fheir freedom. But republi- 
can parents not rarely sell their own children for 
that abuse. 

After the formal and legal abolition of the African 
slave trade, it became more profitable to breed 
slaves for sale in the Northern Slave-holding States. 
Their labor was of comparatively little value to the 
declining agriculture of Delaware, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and North Carolina. From Planting they 
have become, to a great degree. Slave-breeding 
States. The reputed sons of the " Cavaliers" have 
found a new calling, and the " chivalry of the Old 
Dominion" betakes itself, not to manufactures, 
commerce, or agriculture, — but to the breeding of 
slaves for the Southern market. Kentucky and 
Tennessee have embarked largely in the same ad- 
venture. It would be curious to ascertain the exact 
annual amount of money brought into those States 
from the sale of their children, but the facts are not 
officially laid before the public, and a random con- 
jecture, or even a shrewd estimate is not now to 
the purpose. 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 37 

In the latter half of the last century, Virghiia dis- 
played such an array of talent and statesmanship, 
of eloquence, of intelligent and majily life, in L 
noble form as few States with the same population 
could ever equal ; certainly none in America. There 
were Randolph and JMason, Wythe, Henry, Mad- 
ison, Jefferson, Marshall, Washington ; her very 
" tobacco " could purchase the peace of New Eng- 
land and New York. Now Virginia is eminent as a 
nursery of slaves, bred and begotten for the South- 
ern market. Ohio sends abroad the produce of her 
soil — flour, oxen, and swine; lAIassachusetts the 
produce of her mills and manual craft — cottons 
and woollens, hardware and shoes ; while Virginia 
chivalrous Virginia, the " Old Dominion," sells in 
the world's market the produce of her own loins^— 
men-servants and maidens; her choicest exports are 
her sons and daughters. She has borne for the na- 
tion five Presidents, three of them conspicuous men, 
famous all over the world ; and God knows how 
many slaves to till the soil of the devouring South 
In 1832, It was shown in her legislature that slaves 
were " all the productive capacity," and " consti- 
tute the entire available wealth of Eastern Vir- 
ginia." The President of Wilham and Mary's 
College says, - Virginia is a negro-raising State for 
other States." Thomas Jefferson Randolph pro- 
nounced It - one grand menagerie where men are 
raised for the market like oxen for the shambles." 



4 



38 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

In 1831, it was maintained in her legislature by 
Mr. Gholson, that " the owner of land had a rea- 
sonable right to its annual profits ; the owner of 
orchards to their annual fruits ; the owner of brood- 
mares to their products ; and the owner of female 
slaves to their increase." 

Is any man born a slave ? The Declaration of 
Independence says, All men are born " equal ;" 
their natural rights " unahenable." It is absurd 
to say, a man was born free in Africa, and his 
son born a slave in Virginia. The child born in 
Africa is made a slave by actual theft and per- 
sonal violence ; by what other process can he be 
made a slave in America ? The fact that his father 
was stolen before him makes no difference. By 
the law of the United States it is piracy to enslave 
a man born in Africa ; by the law of Justice, is it 
less piracy to enslave him when born in Baltimore ? 

The domestic slave trade is carried on continu- 
ally in all the great cities of the South ; the capital 
of the Union, called after " the Father of his coun- 
try," is a great slave mart. Droves of slaves, 
chained together, may often be seen in the streets 
of Washington ; the advertisements of the dealers 
are in the journals of that city. There the great 
demagogues and the great drovers of slaves meet 
together, and one city is common to them all. If 
there be degrees in such wrong-doing, it seems 
worse to steal a baby in America than a man in 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 39 

Guinea ; worse to keep a gang of women in Vir- 
ginia breeding children as swine for market, than 
to steal grown men in Guinea ; it is cowardly no 
less than inhuman. But so long ago as 1829, it 
was said in the Baltimore Reporter, " Dealing in 
slaves has become a large business, establishments 
are made in several places in Maryland, at which 
they are sold like cattle ; these places of deposit 
are strongly built, and well supplied Avith iron 
thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with cow- 
skins and other whips, often bloody." 

The African slave trader perhaps even now, is 
not unknown at Baltimore or New Orleans, but 
he is a pirate ; he shuffles and hides, goes sneak- 
ing and cringes to get along amongst men, while 
the American slave-trader goes openly to work, 
advertises " the increase of his female slaves," erects 
his jail, and when that is insufficient, has those 
of the nation thrown open for his use, and all the 
States solemnly pledged to deliver up the fugi- 
tives who escape from his hands. He marches his 
eoffles where he will. The laws are on his side, 
" public sentiment " and the " majesty of the Con- 
stitution." He looks in at the door of the Capitol 
and is not ashamed. 

There are mean men engaged in that traffic who 
" are generally despised even in the slave-holding 
States," but men of property and standing are also 
concerned in this trade. JMr. Erwin, the son-in- 



40 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

law of Mr. Clay, it is said, laid the foundation of a 
large fortune by dealing in slaves ; General Jack- 
son was a dealer in slaves and so late as 1811, 
bought a coffle and drove them to Louisiana for sale. 

In this transfer of slaves the most cruel separa- 
tion of families takes place. In the slave-breeding 
States it is a common thing to sell a boy or a gui 
while the mother is kept as a " Breeder." Does 
she complain of the robbery ? — There is the 
scourge, there are chains and collars. Will the 
husband and father resent the wrong? — There 
are handcuffs and jails ; the law of the United 
States, the Constitution, the Army and Navy ; all 
the able-bodied men of the free States are legally 
bound to come, if need be, and put down the in- 
surrection. Yet, more than fifteen hundred years 
ago, a Roman Emperor forbid the separation of 
families of slaves, and ordered all which had been 
separated to be reunited. " Who can bear," said 
the Emperor to his heathen subjects, " who can 
bear that children should be separated from then- 
parents, sisters from their brothers, wives from 
their husbands ? " 

In 1836, the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky 
said to the world : " Brothers and sisters, parents 
and children, husbands and wives, are torn asunder 
and permitted to see each other no more. These 
acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. There 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 41 

is not a neighborhood where these heart-rending 
scenes are not displayed. There is not a village 
or road which does not behold the sad procession 
of manacled outcasts, whose chains and mournful 
countenances tell that they are exiled by force from 
all that their hearts held dear." The affections 
are proportionally stronger in the Negro than the 
American ; his family his all. The terror of be- 
ing sold and thus separated from the companions 
of his sad misfortune, hangs over the slave for ever, 
at least till too old for service in that way. The 
most able-minded are of course the most turbulent, 
the most difficult to manage, and therefore the most 
commonly sold. But the angel of Death — to them 
the only angel of Mercy — benignantly visits these 
poor Ishmaels in the hot swamps of Georgia and 
Alabama. Thou-God-seest-me, were fitting in- 
scription over the spot Avhere the servant thus be- 
comes free from his master and the weary is at rest, 



4<» 



III. 



EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON INDUSTRY. 

Let us examine the Effects of Slavery on Indus- 
try in all its forms. In the South manual labor is 
considered menial and degrading ; it is the busi- 
ness of slaves. In the free States the majority 
work with their hands, counting it the natural busi- 
ness of a man, not a reproach, but a duty and a 
dignity. Thus in Boston — the richest city of its 
population in America, and perhaps in the world — 
out of 19,037 private families in 1845, there were 
15,744 who kept no servant, and only 1,069 who 
had more than one assistant to perform their house- 
hold labor. In the South the free man shuns labor ; 
" in a slave country every freeman is an aristocrat," 
and of course labor is avoided by such. Where 
work is disgraceful, men of spirit will not submit to 
it. So the high-minded but independent free men 
are continually getting worse off, or else emigrating 
out of the slave States into the new free States, — 
not as the enterprising adventurer goes from New 
England, because he wants more room, but because 
his condition is a reproach. 

Most of the productive work of the South is done 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 43 

by slaves. But the slave has no stimulus ; the 
natural instinct of production is materially checked. 
The master has the mouth which consumes, the 
slave only the hand which earns. He labors not 
for himself, but for another ; for another who 
continually wrongs him. His aim, therefore, is 
to do the least he can get along with. He will 
practise no economy ; no thrift ; he breaks his 
tools. He will not think for his master ; it is all 
hand-work, for he only gives what the master can 
force from him, and he cannot conceal ; there is 
no head-work. There is no invention in the 
slave ; little among the masters, for their business 
is to act on men, not directly on things. This cir- 
cumstance may fit the slave-holder for Politics — 
of a certain character ; it imfits him for the great 
operations of productive industry. They and all 
labor-saving contrivances come from the North. 
In 1846 there were seventy-six patents granted by 
the national oflice for inventions made in fourteen 
slave States, with a population of 7,334,431, or one 
for each 96,505 persons ; at the same time there 
were 564 granted to the free States with a popula- 
tion of 9,728,922, or one for each 17,249 persons. 
Maryland, by her position, partakes more of the 
character of the free States than most of her sisters, 
and accordingly made twenty-one inventions — 
more than a fourth part of all made in the South. 
But Massachusetts had made sixty-two ; and 



44 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

New York, with a population of only 2,428,921, 
had received two hundred and forty-seven pa- 
tent-rights — more than three times as many as 
the whole South. Works which require intelli- 
gence and skill require also the hand of the free 
man. The South can grow timber, it is the North 
which builds the ships. The South can rear cot- 
ton, the free intelligence of the North must weave 
it into cloth. 

In the North the free man acts directly upon 
things by his own will ; in the South, only through 
the medium of men reduced to the rank of things, 
and they act on material objects against their will. 
Half the moral and intellectual effect of labor is 
thereby lost ; half the productive power of the labor 
itself. All the great movements of industry de- 
cline where the aristocracy own the bodies of the 
laboring class. No fertility of soil or loveliness of 
climate can ever make up for the want of industry, 
invention and thrift, in the laboring population 
itself. Agriculture will not thrive as under the 
free man's hand. Slave labor can only be profita- 
bly employed in the coarse operations of field work. 
It was so in Italy 2000 years ago ; the rich gardens 
of Latiura, Alba, Tuscany, were the work of free 
men. When their owners were reduced to Slavery 
by the Roman conqueror, those gardens became 
only pastures for buffaloes and swine. Only coarse 
staples, sugar, cotton, rice, corn, tobacco, can be 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 45 

successfully raised by the slave of America. His 
rude tillage impoverishes the soil ; the process of 
tilth " consists in killing the land." They who will 
keep Slavery as a " patriarchal institution," must 
adopt the barbarism of the patriarchs, become no- 
madic, and wander from the land they have ex- 
hausted, to some virgin soil. The free man's fer- 
tilizing hand enriches the land the longer he labors. 
In Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, the 
soil is getting exhausted ; the old land less valuable 
than the new. In 1787 said Gouverneur Morris, 
in the national Convention, " Compare the free re- 
gions of the Middle States, where a rich and noble 
cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of 
the people, with the misery and poverty which 
overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Mary- 
land, and the other States having slaves. Travel 
through the whole Continent, and you behold the 
prospect continually varying with the appearance 
and disappearance of Slavery. The moment you 
leave the Eastern States and enter New York, the 
effects of the institution become visible. Passing 
through the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania, 
every criterion of superior improvement witnesses 
the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step 
you take through the great regions of slaves, pre- 
sents a desert increasing with the increasing pro- 
portion of these wretched beings." At this day, 
sixty years later, the contrast is yet more striking, 



46 



s« "s^ . - -r _ :. Slavery has wronght 

afier its way. Ev^: y :^^ : i.rs ils own frtdt. 

^ r c"=-coorages :i:e .ziziigration of able bnt 
the free States. They go elsewhere 

::: .- "" rn Slates afford 

r rXorlh will not 

:?try on a level 

-ee 

■^ . --.res 

— : labor, 

2 i. — tJMS wim labor, ibat with 

: degradati(Mi, bat lecip- 
;• _ '3 the men *^b" c*. first 

5- : . ^ - : ^ : . ves bee 'S, 



imoimt 



Diai to wor. 
-'■''-■: to weei 












finii -i*f^*?mr- ^H^ T"*nir: m iiuti wie£. , £ ms^ 



mnr ^ 

vnrr _- ^ : 

:jHif — -s^nt^j"* ■- - ^- , -_ ; .J -- 



50 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

no means so profitable as the work of the free man. 
Mr. Kutledge was not far from right in 1787, when 
he contended that, in direct taxation, a slave should 
pay but one third as much as a freeman, his labor 
being only of one third the value of a freeman's. 

In the Northern States, the freeman comes di- 
rectly in contact with the material things Avhich he 
wishes to convert to his purpose. To shorten his 
labor he makes his head save his hands. He in- 
vents machines. The productive capacity of the 
free States is extended by their use of Wind, Wa- 
ter and Steam for the purposes of human labor. 
That is a solid gain to mankind. Wind-mills, wa- 
ter-mills, steam-engines, are the servants of the 
North ; Homebred Slaves born in their house, the 
increase of fertile heads. These are an important 
element in the power and wealth of a nation. 
While South Carolina has taken men from Africa, 
and made slaves. New England has taken possession 
of the Winds, of the Waters ; she has kidnapped 
the JNIerrimack, the Connecticut, the Androscoggin, 
the Kennebeck, the Penobscot, and a hundred 
smaller streams. She has caught the lakes of New 
Hampshire, and holds them in thrall. She has 
siezed Fire and Water, joined them with an iron 
yoke, and made an army of slaves, powerful, but 
pliant. Consider the machinery moved by such 
agents in New England, New York, Pennsylvania ; 



LETTER ON SLA-V-ERY. 51 

compare ihat with the haroan machines of the 
South, and which is the better drudge ? The 
" Patriarchal Institution of Slavery," and the econ- 
omic institution of Machinery stand side by side. — 
this representing the nineteenth century before 
Christ, and that the nineteenth century after Christ. 
They run for the same goal, though Slavery start- 
ed first and had the smoother road. It is safe to 
say, that the machinery of the free States has 
greater productive ability than the 3,000.000 bond- 
men of the South. While Slavery continues, the 
machinery will not appear. Steam-engines and 
slaves come of a different stock. 

The foreign trade of the South consists mainly in 
the export of the productions of the Farm and the 
Forest : the domestic trade in collecting those sta- 
ples and distributing the articles to be consumed at 
home. Much of the domestic trade is in the hands 
of Northern men — though mainly " with Southern 
principles." The foreign trade is almost wholly in 
the hands of foreigners, or men from the North, 
and is conducted by their ships. In the South, little 
is demanded for home consumption : so the great 
staples of Southern production find their market 
chiefly in the North, or in foreign ports. The ship- 
ping is mainly owned by the North. Of the Atlantic 
States seven have no slaves : !Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 



50 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

no means so profitable as the work of the free man. 
Mr. Rutledge was not far from right in 1787, when 
he contended that, in direct taxation, a slave should 
pay but one third as much as a freeman, his labor 
being only of one third the value of a freeman's. 

In the Northern States, the freeman comes di- 
rectly iu contact with the material things which he 
Avishes to convert to his purpose. To shorten his 
labor he makes his head save his hands. He in- 
vents machines. The productiv^e capacity of the 
free States is extended by their use of Wind, Wa- 
ter and Steam for the purposes of human labor. 
That is a solid gain to mankind. Wind-mills, wa- 
ter-mills, steam-engines, are the servants of the 
North ; Homebred Slaves born in their house, the 
increase of fertile heads. These are an important 
element in the power and wealth of a nation. 
While South Carolina has taken men from Africa, 
and made slaves. New England has taken possession 
of the Winds, of the Waters ; she has kidnapped 
the Merrimack, the Connecticut, the Androscoggin, 
the Kennebeck, the Penobscot, and a hundred 
smaller streams. She has caught the lakes of New 
Hampshire, and holds them in thrall. She has 
siezed Fire and Water, joined them with an iron 
yoke, and made an army of slaves, powerful, but 
pliant. Consider the machinery moved by such 
agents in New England, New York, Pennsylvania ; 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 51 

compare that with the human machines of the 
South, and which is the better drudge ? The 
" Patriarchal Institution of Slavery," and the econ- 
omic institution of Machinery stand side by side, — 
this representing the nineteenth century before 
Christ, and that the nineteenth century after Christ. 
They run for the same goal, though Slavery start- 
ed first and had the smoother road. It is safe to 
say, that the machinery of the free States has 
greater productive ability than the 3,000,000 bond- 
men of the South. While Slavery continues, the 
machinery wull not appear. Steam-engines and 
slaves come of a different stock. 

The foreign trade of the South consists mainly in 
the export of the productions of the Farm and the 
Forest ; the domestic trade in collecting those sta- 
ples and distributing the articles to be consumed at 
home. Much of the domestic trade is in the hands 
of Northern men — though mainly " with Southern 
principles." The foreign trade is almost wholly in 
the hands of foreigners, or men from the North, 
and is conducted by their ships. In the South, little 
is demanded for home consumption ; so the great 
staples of Southern production find their market 
chiefly in the North, or in foreign ports. The ship- 
ping is maiuly owned by the North. Of the Atlantic 
States seven have no slaves : Maine, New Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 



62 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

New York, and New Jersey ; in 1846, they, with 
Pennsylvania, had 2,160,501 tons of shipping. 
In all the slave States which lie on the seaboard, 
there are owned but 401,oS3 tons of shipping. In 
1S46, the young State of Ohio, two thousand miles 
from the sea, had 39,917 tons ; the State of South 
Carolina, 32,588. Even Virginia, full of bays and 
harbors, had but 53,441 tons. The single district 
of the city of New York had 572,522 tons, or 
70,939 more than all the Southern States united. 

The difference in the internal improvements of 
the two sections is quite as remarkable. In general, 
the public highways in the slave-holding Slates are 
far inferior to those of the North, both in extent 
and character. If the estimates made are correct, 
in 1846 there Avere, omitting the fractions, 5,663 
miles of railroad actually in operation in the United 
States. In all the slave States together there were 
2,090 miles. Taking the cost of such as are de- 
scribed in trustworthy sources, and estimating the 
value of those not so described by the general cost 
per mile of railroads in the same state, then the slave 
States have invested $43,910,183 in this property. 
In the free States there were 3,573 miles of railroad, 
which had cost $112,914,465. Thus the free States 
have 1,483 miles of railroad more than the South, 
the value of which is $69,004,282 above the value 
of all the railroads of the slave States. The rail- 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 53 

roads in Pennsylvania iiave cost 843,426,38-5 ; within 
less than half a million of the value of all the 
railroads in all the slave States. Maryland, from 
her position, resembles the free States in many re- 
spects. Besides those of this State, all the railroads 
of the South are worth only 827,717,83o, while those 
of Massachusetts alone have cost .^30,341,444, and 
are now, on the average, five or six per cent, above 
par. The Slate of South Carolina has only paid 
^5,671,452 for her railroad stock. I will not un- 
dertake to estimate its present value. Nor need I 
stop to inquire how many miles of the Southern 
roads have been planned by Northern skill, paid 
for by the capital of the free Stales, and are owned 
by their citizens I 

Let us next consider the increase of the value of 
the landed property in the Free and the Slave 
States. In 1798, the value of all the houses and 
lands in the eight Slave States, that is, Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, was estimated 
at $197,742,'>57 ; that of the houses and lands in 
the eight free States — New Hampshire, Vermont, 
jMassachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New 
Jersey, New York and Peimsylvania — was 
$422,235,780. It is not easy to ascertain exactly 
the value of real property in all these States at this 
moment. But in 1834-6, the government of New 



54 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 



York, and in 1839, that of Virginia, made a new 
valuation of all the real property in their respective 
States. In 1798, all the real estate in Virginia, was 
worth $71,225,127; in 1839, $211,930,538. In 
1798, all the real property in the State of New York, 
was worth $100,380,707; in 1835, $430,751,273. 
In Virginia, there had been an increase of 197.5 per 
cent, in forty-one years ; in New York, an increase 
of 329.9 per cent, in thirty-seven years. 

For convenience sake, let us suppose each of the 
eight Southern States has gained as rapidly as 
Virginia, and each of those eight Northern, in the 
same ratio with New York — and what follows ? In 
1798, the real estate in South Carolina was valued at 
$17,465,013 ; that of Rhode Island, at $11,066,358. 
By the above ratios, the real estate in South Caro- 
lina was worth ^51,958,393 in 1839 ; and in 1835, 
that of Rhode Island was worth $47,574,288. 
Thus the real property in the leading slave State of 
the Union, with a population of 594,398, Avas worth 
but $4,384,105, more than the real property of 
Rhode Island, Avith a population of only 108,830. 
In 1840, the aggregate real property in the city of 
Boston was valued at $60,424,200, and in 1847, 
at $97,764,500,— $45,271,120 more than the com- 
puted value of all the real estate in South Carolina. 
In 1798, the value of the aggregate real property of 
the eight slave States was $'197,742,557; of the 
eight free, $422,235,780 ; in 1839, by the above 






LETTER ON SLAVERY. 55 

ratios, the real estate of the Southern States would be 
worth $588,289,107, and that of the Northern, 
$1,715,201,618. Thus the real property of these 
eight free States would be almost three times more 
valuable than the eight slave States, yet the free 
contain but 170,150 square miles, while the slave 
States contain 212,920. But this, in part, is a mat- 
ter of calculation only, and liable to some uncer- 
tainty as the ratio of Virginia and New York may 
not represent the increase of any either South or 
North. Let us come to public and notorious facts. 

In 1839, the value of all the annual agricultural 
products of the South, as valued by the last census, 
was $312,380,151 ; that of the free States $342,- 
007,446. Yet in the South there were 1,984,866 
persons engaged in agriculture, and in the North 
only 1,735,086, and the South has the advantage of 
raising tropical productions, which cannot be grown 
in Europe. The agricultural products of the South 
which find their w^ay to foreign lands, are mainly 
cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. The entire value of 
these articles raised in the fifteen slave States in that 
year, was $74,866,310 ; while the agricultural pro- 
ductions of the single State of New York amount- 
ed in that year to $108,275,281. 

The value of articles manufactured in the South, 
was $42,178,184 ; in the free States $197,658,040. 
In the slave States there were, in various manufac- 



56 LETTER 0\ SLAVERY. 

Tories, 246,601 spindles ; in Rhode Island, the 
smallest of the free States, 51S,S17, The aggre- 
gate annual earnings of all the slave States, was 
8403,429,718 ; of the free, §658,705,108. The 
annual earnings of six slave States — North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Missis- 
sippi, and Louisiana, amount to $189,321,719 ; 
those of the State of New York to $193,806,433, 
more than $4,000,000 above the income of six fa- 
mous States. The annual earnings of INIassachu- 
setts alone are more than $9,000,000 greater than 
the united earning of three slave States, — South 
Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The earnings of 
South Carolina, with her population of 594,398, 
about equals that of the county of Essex, in jMas- 
sachusetts, with less than 95,000. 

In 1839, in the South there were built houses to 
the value of $14,421,441 ; and in the North, to the 
value of $27,496,560. The ships built by the South 
that year, were valued at $704,289 ; by the North, 
at $6,301,805. 

In 1846, the absolute debt of all the free States, 
was $109,176,527. The actual productive State- 
property of those States, including the school fund, 
was $98,680,285, — leaving the actual indebtedness 
above their State-properly only $10,546,242. The 
absolute debt of the slave States was .$55,948,373 ; 
their productive State-property, including their 
school funds, $30,294,428 — leaving their actual in- 



LETTER ON SLaVEEY. 



57 



debtedness above their State-property $25,6o3,94o, 
more than twice the corresponding indebtedness 
of the North. 

Besides this, it must be remembered that in the 
free States there are 4o,569 men engaged in the 
learned professions, "svhile in the slave States there 
are but 20,292. In addition to that, in all the free 
States there are many employed in teaching common 
schools. Thus, in 1S47, in ^lassachusetts, there 
were 7,5S2 engaged in the common schools. In 
the slave States this class is much smaller. Still 
more, in all the free States there are many, not 
ranked in the learned professions, who devote them- 
selves to Science, Literature, and the Fine Arts ; 
in the South but few. In the South, the female 
slaves are occupied in hard field-labor, which is 
almost unheard-of in the free States. Thus the 
difference in the earnings of the two, great as it 
is, is not an adequate emblem of the actual differ- 
ence or productive capacity, or even of the pro- 
duction, in the two sections of the country. 



IV 



EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON POPULATION. 

Let us next consider the Effects of Slavery 
on the Increase of Numbers, as shown by the great 
movements of the population in the North and 
South. 

In 1790, the present free States — New En- 
gland, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania 
— contained 1,968,455 persons ; the slave States 
1,961,372. In 1840 the same slave States, Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Kentucky — contained 5,479,S60 ; 
the same free States, 6,767,082. In 50 years those 
slave States had increased 179 per cent. ; those free 
States 243 per cent., or with 64 per cent, greater 
rapidity. 

In 1790 the entire population of all the slave 
States Avas 1,961,372; in 1810, including the new 
slave Slates, 7,334,431 ; while the population of 
the free States — including the new ones — Avas 
9,728,922. The slave States had increased 279 
per cent. ; the free, 394, the latter increasing 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 59 

with a rapidity 115 per cent, greater than the 
former. 

In ISIO the new slave States, — Louisiana, Missis- 
sippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Teiuiessee, Missouri, and 
Kentucky — contained 805,991 persons; the new 
free States — Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan — 
contained but 272,324. But in 1840 those new 
slave States, with the addition of Florida, contained 
3,409,132, while the population of the new free 
States — with the addition of Wisconsin and Iowa 
— contained 2,967,840. In 50 years the new 
slave States had increased 323 per cent., and the 
new free States 1,090 per cent. 

In 1790, the whole free population of the present 
free States was 1,930,125 ; the free population of the 
present slave Slates and territories was 1,394,847. 
The difference in the number of free persons in 
the North and South was only 535,278. But in 
1840 the free population of the free States and Ter- 
ritories was 9,727,893 ; the free population of the 
slave States and territories only 4,848,105 ; the dif- 
ference between the two was 4,879,788. In 50 
years the free persons in the slave States had in- 
creased 247 per cent. ; the free persons of the free 
States 404 per cent. It is true something has been 
added to the North by imrnigrations from abroad, 
but the accessions which the South has received by 
the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, by the 
immigration of enterprising men from the North, and 



60 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

by the importation of slaves, is perhaps more thau 
adequate to balance the northern increase by foreign 
immigration. 

The Southern States have great advantages over 
the Northern, in soil, climate, and situation ; they 
have a monopoly of the tropical productions so 
greatly sought by all northern nations ; they have 
superior facilities for the acquisition of wealth, and 
through that for the rapid increase of population. 
In some countries the advance of both is retarded 
by oppressive legislation. Of this the South can- 
not complain, as it will by and by appear. The 
new land lay nearer to the old Southern States 
than the old free States, and that not " infested with 
Indians" to the same extent with the soil since 
conquered and colonized by the emigrants from the 
Northern States. The difference of the increase 
of the two in wealth and numbers, is to be ascribed, 
therefore, to the different institutions of the two 
sections of the land. 



V. 



EFFECTS OF SLAVERY OX EDUCATION. 

Let 113 now look at the Effects of Slavery on 
the intellectual, moral and religious Development 
of the People. The effect on the intellectual, moral 
and religious condition of the slave is easily under- 
stood. He is only continued in Slavery by restraining 
him from the civilization of mankind in this age. 
His mind, conscience, soul — all his nobler pow- 
ers — must be kept in a state of inferior develop- 
ment, otherwise he will not be a slave in the 
nineteenth century, and in the United States. In 
comparison with the intellectual culture of their 
masters the slaves are a mass of Barbarians, still 
more emphatically, when compared with the free 
institutions of the Xorth ; they are Savages. This 
is not a mere matter of inference, the fact is sub- 
stantiated by the notorious testimony of slave-hold- 
ers themselves. In 1S34 the Synod of South Caro- 
hna and Georgia reported that the slaves " may 
justly be considered the Heathen of this coontry, 
and will bear comparison with the Heathen of any 



62 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

part of the world." " They are destitute of the 
privileges of the Gospel, and ever will be under the 
present state of things;" In all the slave Sates, 
says the Synod, there are "not twelve men exclu- 
sively devoted to the religious instruction of the 
Negroes." Of the regular ministers " but a very 
small portion pay any attention to them." " We 
know of but five churches in the slave-holding States 
built exclusively for their use," and " there is no 
sufficient room for them in the white churches for 
their accommodation." " They are unable to read, 
as custom, or law, and generally both, prohibit 
their instruction. They have no Bible — no fam- 
ily altars ; and Avhen in affliction, sickness, or death, 
they have no minister to address to them the con- 
solations of the Gospel, nor to bury them with 
solemn and appropriate services." They may 
sometimes be petted and caressed as children and 
toys, they are never treated as men. 

" Heathenism," says another Southern authority, 
"is as real in the slave States as in the South Sea 
Islands." " Chastity is no virtue among them [the 
slaves] ; its violation neither injures female charac- 
ter in their own estimation nor that of their mis- 
tress." Where there is no marriage recognized by 
the State or Church as legal and permanent between 
slaves ; wdiere the female slave is wholly in her 
master's power — how can it be otherwise ? Said 
the Roman proverb, " Nothing is unlawful for the 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 



63 



master to his slave." When men are counted as 
things, instruments of husbandry, separable limbs 
of the master, and retained in subjugation by ex- 
ternal force and the prohibition of all manly cul- 
ture, the effect of Slavery on its victim is so obvi- 
ous that no more need be said thereof. . 

The effect of Slavery on the intellectual, moral, 
and religious condition of the free population of 
the South, is not so obvious perhaps at first sight. 
But a comparison with the free States will render 
that also plain. 

All attempts at the improvement of the humbler 
and more exposed portions of society, the perish- 
ing and dangerous classes thereof, originate in the 
free States. It is there that men originate societies 
for the Reform of Prisons, the Prevention of Crime, 
Pauperism, Intemperance, Licentiousness and Ig- 
norance. There spring up Education-Societies, 
Bible - Societies, Peace - Societies, Societies for 
teaching Christianity in foreign and barbarous 
lands. There too are the learned and philosophi- 
cal societies, for the study of Science, Letters, and 
Art. Whence come the men of superior educa- 
tion who occupy the Pulpits, exercise the profes- 
sions of Law and Medicine, or fill the chairs of the 
Professors in the Colleges of the Union ? Almost 
all from the North, from the free States. There is 
preaching every Avhere. But search the whole 



64 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

Southern Slates for the last seven-and-forty years, 
and it were hard to show a single preacher of any 
eminence in any pulpit of a slave-holding State ; a 
single clergyman remarkable for ability in his calling, 
for great ideas, for eloquence, elsewhere so cheap 
— or even for learning ! Even Expositions and 
Commentaries on the Bible, the most common cler- 
ical productions, are the work of the North alone. 

Whence come the distinguished authors of Amer- 
ica ? the Poets — Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier ; 
Historians — Sparks, Prescott, Bancroft ; Jurists — 
Parsons, Wheaton, Story, Kent ! Whence Irving, 
Channing, Emerson ; — w' hence all the scientific 
men, the men of thought, who represent the Na- 
tion's loftier consciousness ? All from the free 
States ; north of Mason and Dixon's line ! 

Few works of any literary or scientific value 
have been written in this country in any of the 
slave States ; few even get reprinted there. Com- 
pare the works which issue from the press of New 
Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Norfolk, Baltimore, 
with such as come from Philadelphia, NewYork, 
and Boston — even from Lowell and Cincinnati ; 
compare but the Booksellers' stock in those several 
cities, and the difference between the cultivation of 
the more educated classes of the South and North 
is apparent at a glance. 

But leaving general considerations of this sort, let 



LLTTKR O:-' SLAVERY. 66 

US look at fads. In 1671, Sir William Berkely, Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, said, " J thank God that there 
are no frea schools nor printing presses, [in Virginia] 
and I hope we shall not have them these hundred 
years." In 1840, in the fifteen slave Slates and 
territories, there were at the various primary schools 
201,08-0 scholars ; at the various primary schools of 
the free Stales 1,626,028. The Stale of Ohio alone, 
had 218,601i scholars at her primary schools, 17,o24 
more than all the fifteen slave States. South Car- 
olina hod 12,o20 such scholars, and Rhode Island 
17,3.>0. New York alone had 'S02,.367. 

In the higher schools there were in the South, 
3-j,93'V " scholars at the public charge," as they are 
called in the censas ; in the North, 432,3^SS similar 
scholars. Virginia, the largest of the slave Slates 
had 9,791 such scholars ; Rhode Island, the small- 
est of the free States 10,719. Massachusetts alone 
had 1'jS,3o1, more than four times as many as all 
the slave States. 

In the slave Stales, at academies and grammar 
schools, there v.ere o2,906 scholars ; in the free 
Slates, 97,174. But the difference in numbers here 
does not represent the difference of fact, for most 
of the academies and grammar schools of the South 
are inferior to the " schools at public charge " of 
the North ; far inferior to the better portion of the 
Northern " District Schools." 

In IS 10 there wpre at the various Colleges in the 
6* 



66 LETTER OX SLAVERY. 

South, 7,106 pupils, and in the free States, 8,927. 
Here too, the figures fail to indicate the actual dif- 
ference in the numbers of such as receive a superior 
education ; for the greater part of the eighty-seven 
'• Universities and Colleges •' of the South are much 
inferior to the better Academies and High Schools 
of the North. 

In the libraries of all the Universities and Col- 
leges of the South there are 223,416 volumes ; in 
those of the North, 593, S97. The hbraries of the 
Theological schools of the South contain 22,S00 
volumes ; those of the North, 102,080. The dif- 
ference in the character and value of these volumes 
does not appear in the returns. 

In the slave States there are 1.368,325 free white 
children between the ages of five and twenty ; in the 
free States, 3,536,689 such children. In the slave 
States, at schools and colleges, there are 301,172 
pupils ; in the free States, 2.-212.444 pupils, at 
schools or colleges. Thus, in the slave States, out 
of twenty-five free white children between live and 
twenty, there are not quite five at any school or 
college ; while out of twenty-five such children in the 
free States, there are more than fifteen at school or 
college. 

In the slave States, of the free white population 
that is over twenty years of age, there is almost 
one tenth part that are unable to read and write ; 
while in the free States there is not quite one in 



LETTER OX SLAVEBT. 67 

one hundred and fifty-six who is deficient to that 
degree. 

In New England there are but few born therein 
and more than twenty years of age. who are unable 
to read and write : but many foreigners arrive there 
with no education, and thus swell the number of the 
illiterate, and diminish the apparent effect of her 
free institutions. The South has few such emi- 
grants ; the ignorance of the Southern States there- 
fore is to be ascribed to other causes. The North- 
ern men who settle in the slave-holdiog States, 
have perhaps about the average culture of the 
North, and more than that of the South. The 
South therefore gains educationally from immigra- 
tion as the North loses. 

Among the Northern States Connecticut^ and 
among the Southern States, South Carolina, are to 
a great degree free fi-om disturbing influences of 
this character. A comparison between the two will 
show the relative effects of the respective institutions 
of the North and South. In Connecticut, there 
are 163. S43 free persons over twenty years of age ; 
in South Carolina but 111.663. In Connecticut, 
there are but 526 persons over twenty who are un- 
able to read and ^^Tite, while in South Carolina 
there are 20.615 free white persons over twenty 
years of age unable to read and write. In South 
Carohna, out of each 626 free whites more than 
twenty years of age, there are more than 5S wholly 



68 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

unable to read or write ; out of that number of such 
persons in Connecticut, not quite two ! More than 
the sixth part of the adult freemen of South Caro- 
lina are unable to read the vote which will be de- 
posited at the next election. It is but fair to infer 
that at least one third of the adults of South Caro- 
lina, if not of much of the South, are unable to read 
and understand even a newspaper. Indeed, in one 
of the slave States, this is not a matter of mere in- 
ference, for in 1837 Gov. Clarke, of Kentucky, de- 
clared, in his message to the legislature, that " one 
third of the adult population were imable to write 
their names ;" yet Kentucky has a " school-fund," 
valued at $1,221,819, while South Carolina has 
none. 

One sign of this want of ability even to read, in 
the slave States, is too striking to be passed by. 
The staple reading of the least cultivated Ameri- 
cans is the newspapers, one of the lowest forms of 
literature, though one of the most powerful, read 
even by men who read nothing else. In the slave 
States there are published but 377 newspapers, and 
in the free 1,135. These numbers do not express 
the entire difference in the case, for as a general 
rule the circulation of the Southern newspapers is 
50 to 75 per cent, less than that of the North. 
Suppose, however, that each Southern newspaper 
has two thirds the circulation of a Northern jour- 
nal, we have then but 225 newspapers for the slave 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 69 

States I The more valuable joTunals — the month- 
lies aud quarterlies — are published almost eutirelv 
in the free Slates. 

The number of Churches, the number and char- 
acter of the clergy who labor for these churches, 
are other measures of the intellectual and moral 
condition of the people. The scientific character 
of the Southern clergy has been already touched 
on. Let us compare the more external facts. 

In 1S30. South Carolina had a population of 
oSl.lSo souls ; Connecticut 297.675. In 1S36, 
South Carolina had 364 ministers : Connecticut 49S. 

In 1S34. there were in the slave States but S2.o32 
scholars in the Sunday schools ; in the free States 
o04,S3o ; in the single State of New York, 161,768. 

A cause which keeps 3,000.000 men in bondage in 
America and the nineteenth century, has more sub- 
tle influences than those just now considered. It 
not only prevents the extension of education among 
the people, but affects the doctrines taught them, 
even the doctrines taught in the name of God. 
Christianity is nominally the public ReHgion of 
America : not of the Government, which extends 
protection alike to all modes of worship, of the 
Indian, the Mormon, and the Jew, but of the 
people. I will not touch the doctrines of the sects, 
in which Christian differs from Christian, but come 



70 LETTER ON SLAVERY, 

to what is general among Christians — a part of the 
universal Rehgion imphed also in Human Nature 
itself. All sects, as such, theoretically agree that the 
most important practical doctrine of Christianity is 
LOVE TO MEN ; to all men, of all ages, races, and con- 
ditions. As the Christian idea of God rises far above 
the Heathen or Hebrew conception thereof, so the 
Christian idea of man's relation to man far trans- 
cends the popular notions of human duty which 
formerly had prevailed. God is " our Father," 
the God of Love ; Man our Brother, whom Ave 
are bound to love as ourselves, and treat as we 
would be treated. Christian Piety, or Love of God, 
involves Christian Morality, or Love of Man. 

I lay aside the peculiar theoretical doctrines of 
the sects, that are preached everywhere, and ask : 
Can the Christian relations of human Brotherhood, 
the Christian duty of Love to Men, be practically 
preached in the Slave States ? I only publish an 
open secret in saying it is impossible. The forms 
of Christianity may be preached, not its piety, not 
its morality, not even its philosophy, or its history. 
If a man holds slaves in practice and justifies the 
deed in theory, how can he address an audience of 
slaveholders and teach them the duty of loving 
others as themselves ? He Cannot consistently 
teach that doctrine, nor they consistently hear. 

The doctrines of the public religion are always 
modified by national habits, history, institutions» 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 71 

and ideas. Christianity, as taught in New England, 
has modifications unknown in Old England. The 
great national and peculiar ideas of America — of 
which I shall soon speak — are among the truths of 
Christianity. We began our national career by de- 
claring all men born wath equal rights. In such a 
people we might look for a better and more uni- 
versal development of Christianity, than in a na- 
tion which knows no unalienable rights, or equality 
of all men, but robs the many of their rights, to 
squander privileges on the few. 

In some lands Monarchy, Aristocracy, Prelacy, 
appear in the public teaching as parts of Christian- 
ity. In America it is not so. But it is taught that 
Slavery is an ordinance of God, — justified by 
Christianity. Thus as the public Religion is else- 
where made to subserve the private purposes of 
Kings, Nobles, Priests — so here is it made to 
prove the justice of holding men in bondage. 
There are no chains like those wrought in the 
name of God, and welded upon their victim by the 
teachers of Religion. 

Most of the churches in the United Stales exer- 
cise the power of excluding a man from their com- 
munion for such offences as they see fit; for any 
unpopular breach of the moral law ; — for murder, 
robbery, theft, public drunkenness, seduction, licen- 
tiousness, for heresy. Even dancing is an offence 



72 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

for which the churches sometimes deal with their 
children. But, with the exception of the Quakers 
and the United Brethren, no rehgious bodies in the 
United States now regard slave-holding or slave- 
dealing as an ecclesiastical offence. Church-mem- 
bers and clergymen are owners of slaves. Even 
churches themselves in some instances have, in 
their corporate capacity, been owners of men. In 
Turkey, when a man becomes a Mahometan, he 
ceases to be a slave. But in America a clergyman 
may own a member of his own church, beat him, 
sell him, and grow rich on " the increase of his 
female slaves." 

Few productions of the Southern clergy find 
their way to the North. Conspicuous among those 
few are sermons in defence of Slavery ; attempts 
to show that if Christ were now on earth he might 
consistently hold property in men ! 

The teachings of the Southern pulpit become more 
and more favorable to Slavery. Oppressed, Ameri- 
ca promulgated the Theory of Freedom ; — free, 
she established the practice of Oppression. In 1780 
the Methodist Episcopal Church declared " Slavery 
is contrary to the laws of God," and "hurtful to 
society ;" in 1784 it refused to admit slave-holders 
to its communion — passing a vote to exclude all 
such. But in 1836 the General Conference voted 
" not to interfere in the civil and political relations 
between master and slave," and exhorted its minis- 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 73 

ters 'Uo abstain from all abolition movements." 
The General Conference has since declared that 
American Slavery " is not a moral evil." The 
Conference of South Carolina has made a similar 
declaration. 

In 1794 the Presbyterian Church added a note 
to the eighth commandment, bringing Slavery un- 
der that prohibition, declaring it manstealing and a 
sin. Yet, though often entreated, it did not excom- 
municate for that offence. In 1818, by a public de- 
cree, the note was erased. Numerous Presbyteries 
and Synods have passed resolutions like these : 
" Slavery is not opposed to the will of God ;" 
" It is compatible with the m.ost fraternal regard to 
the best good of those servants whom God may 
have committed to our charge." Even the Catho- 
lic Church in the United States forms no exception 
to the general rule. The late lamented Dr. En- 
gland, the Catholic Bishop of Charleston, South 
Carolina, undertook in public to prove that the 
Catholic Church had always been the uncompro- 
mising friend of slaveholding, not defending the 
slaves' Right, but the usurped Privilege of the mas- 
ters. What a difference between the present Chris- 
tian Pope of Rome, and the Bishop of a democratic 
State in a Christian Republic ! 

It has been currently taught in the most popular 
churches of the land, that Slavery is a " Christian 
institution,' sustained by the Apostles, and sane- 



74 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

tioned by Christ himself. None of the theological 
parties has been so little connected with Slavery 
as tlie Unitarians — perhaps from the smallness 
of the sect itself, and its northern latitude — but, 
for years, one of its vice-presidents was a slave- 
holder. 

"While the Southern churches teach that Slavery 
is Christian, the Northern join in the belief. Here 
and there a few voices in the North have been 
lifted up against it ; seldom an eminent voice in an 
eminent place, then to be met with obloquy and 
shame. Almost all the churches in the land seem 
joined in opposing such as draw public attention to 
the fact that a Christian Republic holds millions of 
men in bondage. Not long since a clergyman of 
the South, who boasted that he owned thirty slaves, 
and " would wade knee-deep in blood " to defend 
his right to them, was received by the Northern 
churches, and as himself has said, " invited on 
every hand to pulpits," with no rebuke, but only 
welcome from the large and powerful denomina- 
tion to Avhich he belonged. He returned, as he 
says, "leaving the hot-beds of abolitionism, without 
having been once foiled. God be praised for sus- 
taining me. I give Him all the glory, for without 
Him I am nothing." Even in Boston there is a 
church of the same denomination, in which no 
colored man is allowed to purchase a seat. Colored 
men at the North are excluded from colleges and 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 70 

high schools, from theological seminaries and from 
respectal)le churches — even from the Town Hall 
and the Ballot. Doctrines and outward deeds are 
but signs of Sentiments and Ideas which rule the 
hfe. 

The sons of the North, when they settle in the 
South, as merchants, ministers, lawyers, plant- 
ers, when they stand in the congress of the nation ; 
"when they fill important offices in the federal gov- 
ernment — what testimony do they bear to the 
declaration that " all men are created equal ? " I 
should blush to refresh your memories Avith North- 
ern Shame. 

If the clergy find Slavery " ordained " in the 
Bible, and established amongst the " Christian in- 
stitutions," did not the laymen first find it in the 
Bible of Rousseau ? Important men at the South 
have taught that Slavery is " a moral and humane 
institution, productive of the greatest political and 
social advantages ;" '' the corner stone of our re- 
publican edifice :" " It is the most sure and stable 
edifice for free institutions in the world." The 
doctrine that " all men are created equal " in Rights 
is declared " ridiculously absurd." Democratic Mr. 
Calhoun declares that where " common labor is per- 
formed by niembers of the political community a 
dangerous element is obviously introduced into the 
body politic." A Pagan had taught it two thou- 
sand years before. 



76 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

Thus powerful is the influence of Slavery in its 
action on the intellectual, moral and religious de- 
velopment of the people at the South ; thus subtly 
does it steal upon the North. As one of your most 
illustrious citizens, old but not idle, has said, the 
Spirit of Slavery " has crept into the philosophical 
chairs of the Schools. Its cloven foot has ascended 
the pulpits of the churches. Professors of colleges 
teach it as a lesson of morals ; ministers of the gos- 
pel seek and profess to find sanctions for it in the 
Word of God." 

The effect of Slavery on the industrial, numerical, 
intellectual and moral developments of the people 
may be best shown by a comparison of the con- 
dition and history of the two largest States, one 
Slave, the other Free. Virginia contains more than 
64,000 square miles, or 13,370 more than England. 
The climate is delightful. The State is intersected 
by " the finest bay in the world ; " Avatered by long 
and abundant rivers, this inviting navigation, and 
allowing numerous and easy communications with 
the interior ; that waiting to turn the wheels of the 
manufacturer, to weave and spin. The soil is rich 
in minerals. Irog, Lead and Limestone are abun- 
dant. Nitre is found in her caverns. Salt abounds 
on the Great Kenawha and the Holston. Fields 
of coal, anthracite and bituminous, are numerous, 
rich, and of easy access. The soil is fertile, the 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 77 

sky genial, the air salubrious. She is the oldest 
State in the Union ; long the most important in 
wealth, population and political power. The noble 
array of talent and virtue found there in the last 
century has already been mentioned. Abundantly 
blessed with bays, harbors, rivers, mines, no State 
in the Union had such natural advantages as Vir- 
ginia in 1790. New York has 49,000 square miles, 
and was settled somewhat later than Virginia, and 
under circumstances less propitious. Numerous 
causes retarded her growth before the Kevolution. 
Though favored with an excellent harbor, she has 
but one natural channel of communication with the 
interior. In 1790 Virginia contained 74S,34S in- 
habitants ; New York but 340,120. In 1S40 Vir- 
ginia had 1,239,797 ; New York 2,42S,921, and in 
1S45, 2,604,495. In fifty years Virginia had not 
doubled her population, while New York had in- 
creased more than fourfold. In 1790, Virginia 
had more than eleven inhabitants to each square 
mile, and New York not quite eight ; but in 1S40, 
Virginia had only nineteen, and New York fifty- 
three persons to the square mile. In 179S, the 
houses and lands of Virginia were valued at 
$71,225,127, those of New York at 8100,380,707 ; 
in 1839 the real estate in Virginia was worth but 
8211,930,538, Avhile that of New York had in- 
creased to 8430,751,273. In 1840 the annual 
earnings of Virginia were 876,769,032 ; of New 
7* 



78 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

York $193,806,433. The population of New York 
is not quite double that of Virginia, But her annual 
earnings nearly three times as great. In 1840, at 
her various colleges and schools, Virginia had 
57,302 scholars, and also 58,787 adult free whites 
unable to read and write — 1,484 more than the 
entire number of her children at school or college. 
New York had 44,452 illiterate adults, and 565,442 
children at school or college. Besides that, in Vir- 
ginia there Avere 448,987 slaves, with no literary 
culture at all, shut out from communication with 
the inteUigence of the age. In 1844, in New York, 
709,156 children, between four and sixteen, attend- 
ed the common public schools of the State, and the 
common school libraries contained over a million 
of volumes ; while in Virginia there were over 
100,000 free white children between four and six- 
teen, who attended no school at all, perpetual va- 
grants from learning, year out and year in. Shall 
it always be so ? The effect follows the cause. A 
man loses half his manhood, by Slavery, said 
Homer, and it is as true of a State as a man. 



VI. 



EFFECT OF SLAVERY ON LAW AND POLITICS. 

I NOW call your attention to the Influence of 
Slavery on Law and Politics, its local effect on the 
Slave States in special, its general effect on the 
Politics of the Union. 

In the settlement of America only the People 
came over. Nobility and Royalty did not migrate. 
The People, the Third Estate, of course brought 
the Institutions and Laws of their native land — 
these are the National Habits, so to say. But they 
brought also political Sentiments and Ideas not 
represented by the Institutions or Laws ; Sentiments 
and Ideas hostile thereto, and which could not be 
made real in England, but were destined — as are 
all such ^ Ideas — to form Institutions and make 
Laws in their own image. There are three such 
political Ideas Avhich have already found a theo- 
retical expression, and have more or less been made 
Facts and become incarnate in Institutions and 
Laws. These are, first, the Idea, that in virtue of 



80 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

his manhood, each man has unalienable Rights, 
not derived from men or revocable thereby, but 
derived only from God ; second, that in respect to 
these Rights all men are created equal ; third, 
that the sole design of political government is 
to place every man in the entire possession of 

ALL his unalienable RiGHTS. 

The Priesthood, Nobility, Royalty, did not share 
these Ideas — nor the Sentiments which led to 
them. These Ideas were of the people ; they must 
form a Democracy, the goverx.aient of all, for 
ALL and by all — a Commonwealth Avith no privi- 
leged class — a State Avithout Nobles or Kings, a 
Church without Prelate or Priest. 

These Ideas, in becoming facts and founding 
political Institutions to represent themselves, modi- 
fied also the ancient and Common Law. " The 
Laws of England," said Sir John Fortescue, in the 
fifteenth century, " the Laws of England favor 
Liberty in every case ;" " let him who favors not 
liberty be judged impious and cruel." After the 
national and solemn expression of the above Demo- 
cratic Ideas, the laws must favor liberty yet more, 
and new Institutions likewise come into being. 
Accordingly, in the free States of the North, where 
these Ideas have always had the fullest practical 
exposition, ever since the Revolution there has 
been a continual advance in legislation — laws 
becoming more humane, universal principles get- 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 81 

ting established, and traditional exceptions becoming 
annulled. In Law — the theory of these Ideas — 
so far as expressed in Institutions and habits — and 
in Society — the practice thereof, so far as they 
have passed into actual life, there is a constant 
levelling upward ; the low are raised — the Slave, 
the Servant, the Non-Freeholder ; the lofty not 
degraded. In the constitutions of nearly all the 
free States it is distinctly stated that all men 
ARE CREATED EQUAL IN RIGHTS, and in all it is 
implied. They all are advancing towards a reali- 
zation of that Idea — slowly, but constantly. They 
have lost none of the Justice embodied in the Com- 
mon Law of their ancestors — but gained new 
Justice, and embodied it in their own forms. 

This Idea of the natural equality of all men in 
Rights, is inconsistent with Slavery ; accordingly it is 
expressed in the constitution of but one slave State 
— Virginia. It is consistently rejected by the poli- 
ticians of the South. This difference of Ideas must 
appear in all the Institutions of the North and. 
South, and produce continual and conflicting modi- 
tications of the Common Law of England, which 
they both inherit ; if the one Idea adds Justice 
thereto, the other takes it away. 

Now among the institutions inherited from 
England were the Trial by a Jury of twelve men in 
all matters affecting liberty and life ; the Presump- 



82 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

tion in favor of life, liberty and innocence ; the 
Right of every man under restraint to have a legal 
reason publicly shown for his confinement, by a 
writ of Habeas Corpus. The form of the latter 
is indeed modern, but its substance old, and of un- 
certain date. These three have long been regard- 
ed as the great Safeguards of public justice, and in 
the les;islation of the free States remain undisturbed 
in their beneficent action, extending to every per- 
son therein. In the slave States the whole class of 
Bondmen is in fact mainly deprived of them all. 

By the customs of England and her Law, while 
Villanage obtained there, the rule was that the child 
followed the condition of its Father : Filius sequitur 
Pati'em. Hence the issue of a freeman, though 
born of a servile mother, was always free. In vir- 
tue of this maxim, and the legal Presumption in 
favor of Liberty, a presumption extending to all 
classes of men, the child of a female slave, which 
was born out of wedlock, was of course free. It 
was possible the father was a free man. The child 
gained nothing but existence from his unknown 
father, and the Law would not make that a curse. 
The child of a slave father, but born before the father 
was proved a slave, retained his freedom forever. 

If a freeman married a female slave, she became 
free during the life of her husband, and the child- 
ren of course were free. 

The slave, under certain circumstances, could 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 83 

possess property, acquired by devise, by gift, or 
other means. It was so as a general rule through 
all the North of Europe ; the more cruel maxims 
of the Roman slave-code never prevailed with the 
Teutonic race. 

The slave could make a contract with his lord, 
binding as that between peer and peer. He could 
in his own name bring an action against any one ; 
in some cases even against his master. He could, 
in all cases and in his own name, demand a Trial by 
Jury in a court of record, to determine if he were 
born a slave, or free. To determine against him, 
it was necessary not only to show in general that 
he was a slave, but that he was the slave of some 
one person in special. If it was simply shown that 
the man was a slave, but was not shown to the 
Jury's satisfaction that he Avas the slave of the 
particular man who claimed him, the slave receiv- 
ed his freedom at once, as one derelict by his mas- 
ter, and if legally claimed by nobody, he naturally 
belonged to himself. 

He could be a witness in any court even when 
his master was an adverse party ; though not pos- 
sessed of all the privileges of a citizen — legalis 
Homo — not admitted to hold office or serve on a 
jury, yet he could testify on oath even in criminal 
cases, as any other man. 

If a slave ran away, and the master for one year 
neglected to pursue him with public outcry and 



84 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

prosecution of his claim, the slave was free by ad- 
verse possession of himself. While he was in 
flight, and in actual possession of freedom, the 
master could not seize on his children or on his 
possessions. He must legally possess the Princi- 
pal, the Substance, before he could touch the Sub- 
ordinate and Accident thereof. Did the slave flee 
to another borough or shire, a jury of that place, — 
except in certain cases, when the trial must take 
place in another county, — must not only convict him 
as a slave before the master could recover his body, 
but must convict him of being the slave of that spe- 
cial claimant. 

If a slave took orders in the Church, or became 
a monk, he was free from his master, though this 
was an exception to the law in most Catholic coun- 
tries. If violence were offered to a female slave 
by her master, she had redress as a free Avoman. 
Slaves had all the personal rights of freemen ex- 
cept in regard to their own respective masters, and 
in some cases even then. There was no hindrance 
to manumission. 

In America the laws relating to Slavery are in 
many respects more severe than the English laws, 
since the Norman conquest, respecting villains — 
regardant or in gross. The child's condition fol- 
lows that of the mother. This American departure 
from the Common Law was early made by statute, 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 'OO 

and the opposite maxim, the rule of the Civil Law, 
extended over the slave States ; — Partus seqidtur 
Ventrem. Illegitimate children of female slaves 
■were of course slaves forever, though the father 
was free. But for this alteration, many thousands 
of men now slaves would have been free. 

Contrary to the old Common Law of England, 
but in obedience to the Roman code, the American 
slave, in law is regarded merely as a thing ; "doom- 
ed," as Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, sorroAv- 
fully declares, " to live without knowledge and 
without the capacity to make anything his own, and 
to toil that another may reap the fruits." In some 
of the slave States Trial by Jury is allowed to him 
in all capital cases ; sometimes Avith the concur- 
rence of a grand jury, sometimes without. Some- 
times he is allowed to challenge the jurors " for 
cause," though not peremptorily. But in South 
Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana, the slave is not 
allowed a jury trial, even when his life is in peril. 
In some others he has the protection of a jury when 
arraigned for inferior offences. But in every slave 
State he may be beaten to the extent of " thirty- 
nine lashes well laid on," without the verdict of a 
jury, but by the decision of a body of justices of the 
peace, varying in number from two to five. In all 
cases he is tried by men v/ho regard him only as a 
thing, never by a jury of his peers — not even by 



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90 LETTER OX SLA^■ERY. 

it perpetual. " Neither bond nor free may be 
separated from the sacraments of the church," said 
the Decretal of Gregory, " the marriages among 
slaves must not be hindered, and though contracted 
against their master's will, ought not, on that ac- 
count, to be dissolved." But in the American 
law, the slave cannot contract marriage. In North 
Carolina, no marriage is legal between whites and 
persons of color, including in the latter term all 
descended from a negro to the fourth generation. 

In some States it is a penal offence to teach 
slaves the elements of common learning. By the 
recent code of Virginia, any one who undertakes 
to teach reading or Avriting to slaves, or even free 
colored persons, may be fined from 810 to 8100. 
The same is forbidden in Georgia. In Alabama, 
the punishment is a fine from 8250 to 8-300 ; in 
Mississippi, imprisonment for one year. Lousiana 
forbids the teaching of slaves to read or write, 
and prohibits any one from using language in 
public discourse or private conversation, having a 
tendency to produce discontent among the free 
colored population. The latter offence is punish- 
able " with imprisonment or death at the discretion 
of the court." This antipathy to the education 
of the colored race, extends even to the free States. 
It is not unknown in New England. The State 
of Ohio, established schools in 1829 for " the 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 91 

white youth of every class ami grade 'vviihoiu 
distinction.*' 

According to the alleged precept of ^laliomet, 
slaves are supposed to be bound by feebler, social 
and civil obligations than free men, and thus com- 
mon oUences receive but half the punishment of 
the free. Such it is said is the Common Law of 
Mahometans in Turkey, and the East. In Vir- 
ginia there are six capital oll'ences for a freeman, 
seventy-one for a slave. In Mississippi there arc 
thirty-eight otVences for which a slave must be 
punished with death, — not one of which is a 
capital crime in a free white man. In some States 
the law is milder, but in none does the Christian 
Kepublican of Anglo Saxon descent imitate the 
humanity of the Mussulman, and legally favor the 
weaker part — correcting slaves as the children of 
the State. 

Man"y oll'ences for which a slave is severely 
punished, are not wrongs by Natin*e, sins against 
the Universal and Divine Law, but only crimes 
by Statute. Thus in Mississipjii, if a slave bo 
found ''lire-hunting" he is punishable '' with thirty- 
nine lashes, well laid on his bare back." lu the 
same State, if a slave be found out of the limits 
of the town, or oil' the plantation where he usually 
works, " any one may apprehi-nd and punisii him 
with wliipjiing on the bare back, not cx(MH>ilitig 



92 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

twenty lashes." If he refuses to submit to the 
examination of any white person, "such white 
person may apprehend and moderately correct 
him, and if he shall assault and strike such white 
person, he may be lawfully killed." Louisiana has 
a similar law, and also punishes any slave or free 
colored person exercising the functions of a minister 
of the Gospel, with thirty-nine lashes. In Virginia 
a slave or free colored person may be beaten with' 
tAventy lashes for being found at any school for 
teaching reading and writing. In South Carolina 
he is forbidden to wear any but the coarsest 
garments. 

The Roman code allowed emancipation ; the 
Customs of England and Germany favored it. The 
Christian church often favored and recommended it. 
In the Roman Empire, the advance of humanity 
continually rendered it easy and common. A slave 
sick, and derelict of his master, recovering, claimed 
legally his freedom for salvage of himself. But 
in America the laws constantly throw obstacles 
in its way. In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 
and Mississippi no man can emancipate any slave, 
except by authority of the Legislature, granted by 
a special enactment conveying the power. In 
Georgia, a Will, setting free a slave, is so far null 
and void, and any person attempting to execute 
it, shall be fined ^1000. In Kentucky, Missouri, 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 93 

Virginia, INIarylancl, it is less difficult ; but even 
there no man is allowed to emancipate a slave to 
the prejudice of his creditors; — or in Virginia, 
INIississippi and Kentucky, to the lessening of his 
■widow's dower, the Common Law, favors three 
things — Life, Liberty and Dower; — the law of 
these three States sacrifices the Liberty of Slaves 
to the Dower of a widow. Emancipation must 
be made with most formal and technical minute- 
ness, or the act is void. Does the master solemnly 
covenant with his slave to emancipate him ? the 
contract can be revoked at the master's will. No 
extraordinary service of the slave, except in 
North Carolina, Avould be held " a good consid- 
eration" and sufficient to bind the bargain. Li 
some States, as Maryland, and Virginia, in fact — no 
person under thirty nor over five-and-forty can be 
emancipated. 

Take all the slave-laws of the United States 
together, consider the Race that has made them, 
their Religion, the Political Ideas of their govern- 
ment, that it is in the nineteenth century after Christ, 
and they form the most revolting work of legisla- 
tion to be found in the annals of any pacific people. 
The codes of the Barbarians who sat on the ruins 
of the Roman Empire — the Burgundians, Bava- 
rians, the AUemanni, with the Visigoths and their 
northern kin — have left enactments certainly 



94 LETTER ON SLA^*ERY. 

more terrible in themselves. But the darkness of 
that period shrouds all those barbarian legislations 
in a general and homogeneous gloom ; and here, it 
is " the freest and most enlightened nation of the 
world," who keeps, extends, and intensifies the 
dreadful statutes which make men only things, 
binds and sells them as brute cattle. In 1102, the 
Council of London decreed that " hereafter no one 
shall presume to carry on the nefarious business in 
which hitherto, men in England are wont to be 
sold as brute beasts." The churches of America 
have no voice of rebuke — no word of entreaty 
when Christian Clergymen sell their brothers in 
the market. The flag of America and the majesty 
of the law defend that " business," which the 
Anglo Saxon Bishops, seven hundred and forty-five 
years ago, looked on as " nefarious," Nefarium Ne- 
goiium. M. de Tocqueville regarded the American 
slave-code as " Legislation stained by unparalleled 
atrocities ; a despotism directed against the human 
mind ; Legislation which forbids the slaves to be 
taught to read and write, and -which aims to sink 
them as nearly as possible to the level of the 
brutes." 

The effect of Slavery appears in the general 
legislation of the South. In Wisdom and Human- 
ity it is far behind the North. It is there that laws 
are most bloody ; punishments most barbarous and 



LETTER ON SLA^•ERV. 95 

vindictive ; that irregular violence takes most often 
the place of legal procedure; that equity is least 
sure even for the free whites themselves. One 
end of the slave's chain is round the master's neck. 
*' Justice," says a proverb, '• has feet of wool 
but iron hands." The slave-driver's whip, and the 
bowie-knife of the American have a near re- 
lation. 

Some of the Southern States have enacted re- 
markable laws to this effect : That when anv firee 
negro or person of color arrives in any vessel at a 
Southern port, he shall be shut up in prison until 
the departure of the vessel, the owner of the vessel 
paying the costs. By this law the free citizens of 
the free States are continually imprisoned in South 
Carolina and Louisiana. This is not only a viola- 
tion of the constitution of the United States, but 
it is contrary to the common customs of Christian 
nations ; a law without a parallel in their codes ; a 
result which Gouverneur Morris did not anticipate 
in 17S7, when he made his satirical calculation 
of the value of the Union to the North. 

The iniquity of the code of the Slave States has 
passed into some enactments of the general govern- 
ment of the Union. In 1793, a law was made by 
Congress to this effect : A fugitive slave escaping 
into a free State — and consequently any man claim- 
ed to be such — mav be seized bv the master or his 



1)0 LETTER OX SLAVERY. 

agent, and carried back to Slavery without the 
intervention of a Trial by Jury to determine •whether 
the man is a slave — simply by a trial before 
'' any Judge of the circuit or district courts of the 
TL'nited States residing or being ■within the State, 
or before any magistrate of the county, city, or 
town corporate where such seizure or arrest shall 
be made." The proof required that the man is a 
slave is by " oral testimony or affida\-it " of the 
parties interested in the man's capture. This is a 
departure firom the Customs of your Fathers ; — a 
dep^arture which the Common Law of England 
would not justify at anytime since the Norman con- 
quest. The Trial by Jury has been regarded the 
great Safeguard of personal Freedom ; even in the 
dark ages of English law it was the Right of every 
man. of every fugitive slave, when his person was 
in peril. Had a slave escaped, with his children, 
and remained some time a freeman — statu liber : 
did the master find the children and not the father, 
he could not hold them till he caught the father, and 
by a jury-tTEd proved his claim. In the United 
States the laws do not favor lit-erty in case of men 
bom with African blood in their veins. 

The power of the general government has been 
continiKLlly exercised against this class of Ameri- 
cans. It pursues them after they have taken refuge 
with the Indians ; it has sullied the American name 
by Tainly asking the monarch of England to deliver 



^sx. ys «^ 



ae aff it :oe 3c 



HV SH. liK SK9QS 



:ije 



98 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

territory. Have the slaves no arms ? There are 
FIREBRANDS OH evcry hearth. During the Revolu- 
tion many thousands escaped from South Carolina 
alone. At the conclusion of the last war with 
England she offered to pay $1,204,000 as tl^e 
value of the slaves who, in a brief period, had taken 
shelter beneath her flag. What if England had 
armed them as soldiers — to ravage the country 
and burn the towns ? Will a future enemy be so 
reluctant ? The feeling of the civiKzed world re- 
volts at our inhumanity. The Enghsh, for reasons 
no longer existing, took little pains to avail them- 
selves of the weapon thus thrust into their hands. 
In the time of our troubles with France, when war 
was expected, General Washington had serious 
apprehensions from this source. Even in 1756, 
during the French war, Governor Dinwiddle of 
Virginia did not " dare venture to part with any of 
our white men any distance, as we must have a 
watchful eye over our negro slaves." 

The Revolutionary war showed the respective 
military abilities of North and South, and their re- 
spective devotion to their country's cause. It is 
not easy, perhaps not possible to ascertain the sums 
of money furnished by the particular States, for the 
purposes of that war ; the number of men it is easy 
to learn. Taking the census of 1790 as the stand- 
ard, the six slave States had a free population of 



LETTER OX SLAVERY. 99 

l,So2,504, or, including Kentucky and Tennessee, 
1,961,372. Let us suppose, that during the Revo- 
lution, from 1775 to 1783, the number was but two 
thirds as great, or 1,307,549. In those States there 
were 657,527 slaves, all the other States had like- 
wise slaves ; but in New England there Avere but 
3,886, their influence quite inconsiderable in mili- 
tary affairs. Let us therefore compare the number 
of men furnished for the war by New England and 
the six slave States. In 1790 the population of 
New England was 1,009,823. But let us suppose, 
as before, that from 1775 to 1783, it Avas, on an 
average, but two thirds as large, or 673,215. Dur- 
ing the nine years of the Revolutionary war, New 
England furnished for the continental army 119,305 
men ; while the slave States, with a free population of 
1,307,549, furnished but 59,336 men for the conti- 
nental army. Besides that, the slave States fur- 
nished 10,123 militia men, and New England 
29,324. 

Let us compare a slave State, and a free one, of 
about equal population. In 1790, South Carolina 
contained 249,073 persons ; Connecticut 238,141. 
Supposing the population, during the Avar, only tAvo 
thirds as great as in 1790, then South Carolina con- 
tained 166,018, and Connecticut 158,760 persons. 
During the nine years of the Avar, South Carolina 
sent 6,417 soldiers to the continental army, and 
Connecticut 32,039. In 1790, Massachusetts con- 



100 LETTER ON SLA\-ERY. 

tained 47o,Clo7 soiils ; during the Revolution, ac- 
cording to the above ratio, 316,S3S. While the 
six slave State*, with their free population of 
I.o07,o49, furnished but o9,oo0 soldiers for the 
coniiiieutal army, and 10,1*23 militia men, Massa- 
chusetts alone sent GS,007 soldiers to the conti- 
nental army and lo.loo militia. Thus shoulder to 
shoulder Massachusetts and South Carolina went 
through the Revolution, and felt the great arm of 
"Washington lean on them both for support. 

By the Constitution of the United States, in the 
apportionment of representatives to Congress, live 
slaves count the same as three freemen. This is a 
provision imknown in former national codes, rest- 
ing on a principle uu-deraocratic, detrimental to lib- 
erty, and liitherto unheard of: the principle of 
allowing parts of a nation poUtical power in pro- 
portion to the number of men which they hold in 
bondage. It would have astonished the Heathen 
Democracy of Athens long centuries ago. By this 
arrangement, from 17S9 to 179r2, the South gained 
seven representatives in the first Congress ; from 
1795 to 1S13 — foiurteen ; from 1S13 to lS2o — 
nineteen ; from 1S23 to 1833 — twent>-two ; from 
1S33 to 1S43 — twenty-five. By the last appor- 
tionment bill, one representative is allowed for 
70.6S0 free men, or a proportionate number of 
slaves. Bv this airan£rement, in a House of onlv 



LF.TTnn ON KLAV'ERY. 101 

22'j members, the South gains twenty representa- 
tives on account of her slaves — more than one 
twelfth part of the whole. 

At present the North has 13S representatives for 
9,728,922 souls ; or 9,727,S93 free rnen ; one re- 
presentative for each 70,492 free men. The South 
has 87 repre5*entatives. There are within the slave 
Stales 4,848,105 free men ; they have one repre- 
sentative for each oo,72'j free persorLS. 

In the next Presidential election the North will 
have IGG electoral votes ; the South 117. The 
North has an electoral vote for each o2,'j76 free 
men ; the South one for each 41,436. Part of this 
difference is due to the fact that in the South there 
are several small States. But twenty electoral 
votes are given by the South, on account of her 
property in slaves. But if slaves are merely pro- 
perty, there is no reason why Southern Negroes 
should be represented in Congress more than the 
Spindles of the North. 

But the South pays direct taxes for her slaves 
in the same proportion. A direct tax has been re- 
sorted to only four times since 17';9 by the General 
Government, viz. in 1798, 1813, 1814, and 1816. 
The whole amount assessed is .$14,000,000. Of 
this about $12,7'j0,000 was actually paid into the 
treasury of the United States, though part in a de- 
preciated currency. Of that the South paid for 

9* 



102 LETTER ON gLAVERY. 

her slaves, if the computation be correct, only 
$1,256,553. 

In 1837 the surplus revenue of the Union, amount- 
ing to $37,468,859 97, was distributed among the 
several States in proportion to their electoral votes. 
By the census of 1830, the North had 7,008,451 
free persons, and the South but 3,823,289. The 
free States received $21,410,777 12, and the slave 
States $16,058,082 85. Each free man of the 
North received but $3 05, while each free man of 
the South received $4 20 in that division. 

At that time the South had one hundred and 
twenty-six electoral votes, of which twenty-five 
were on account of her slave-representation. She 
therefore received by that arrangement $3,186,127 
50 on account of the representation of her slaves. 
From that if we deduct the $1,256,553 paid by 
her as direct taxes on her slaves, there is left 
$1,929,574 50, as the bonus which the South has 
received from the treasury of the Nation on ac- 
count of the representation of slaves — Southern 
property represented in Congress. To this we 
must add $57,556, which the South received in 
1842 from the sale of public land on account of 
her slaves, the sum is $1,987,130 50. Mr. Pinck- 
ney was right when he said the terms were not bad 
for the South. 

Slavery diverts the freeman from Industry, from 
Science, from Letters and the Elegant Arts. It 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 103 

has been said to qualify him for Politics. As po- 
litical matters have been managed in the United 
States in this century, the remark seems justified 
by the facts. Elections are not accidents. Of the 
eight Presidents elected in the nineteenth century, 
six were born in the South — children of the slave 
States. No northern man has ever twice been 
elected to the highest otEce of the Nation. A 
similar result appears in the appointment of impor- 
tant officers by the President himself. From 1789 
to 184-j, one hundred and seventy appointments 
were made of ministers and charges to foreign 
powers ; of these, seventy-eight were filled from 
the North, ninety-two from the South. Of the 
seventy-four ministers plenipotentiary sent to Eu- 
rope before 1S46, forty-three were from the slave 
States. There have been fifteen judges of the 
Supreme Court from the North ; eighteen from the 
South. The office of Attorney General has been 
four times filled by Northern men, fourteen times 
by men from the slave States. Out of thirty Con- 
gresses, eleven only have had a Speaker from the 
North. These are significant facts, and plainly 
show the aptitude of Southern men to manage the 
political affairs of America. There are Pilots for 
fair weather ; Pilots also only trusted in a Storm. 



VII. 



SLAVERY CONSIDERED AS A WRONG. 

I AM now to speak of Slavery considered as a 
Wrong, an Offence against the natural and eternal 
Laws of God. You all know it is Wrong — a 
Crime against Humanity, a Sin before Almighty 
God. The great men who call Slavery — right and 
just ; — do they not know better ? The little and 
humble men who listen to their speech — do not we 
all know better ? Yes, we all know that Slavery 
is a Sin before God ; — is the union of many sins. 
On this theme I wall say but a word. 

The Roman code declares liberty the natural 
estate of man, but calls Slavery an institution of 
positive Law, by which one man is made subject 
to another, contrary to nature. By the Hebrew 
Law it was a capital offence to steal a man and sell 
him, or hold him as a Slave. 

Now if that doctrine be true which the American 
people once solemnly declared self-evident — that 
all men are created with equal Rights — then every 
slave in the United States is stolen. Then Slavery 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 105 

is a continual and aggravated tlieft. It matters not 
that the slave's mother Avas stolen before. To 
take the child of a slave must be theft as much as 
to take the child of a freeman ; it is stealing man- 
kind. He that murders a child has no defence in 
the fact that he first nuu'dered the sire. 

When we hear that the Emperor^ of Russia or 
Austria, for some political opinion, shuts a man in 
the Spielberg, or sends him to Siberia, for life — we 
pity the victim of such despotic power, thinking 
his natural rights debarred. But the defence is 
that the man had shown himself dangerous to the 
welfare of the State, and so had justly forfeited his 
rights. When we reduce a man to a slave, making 
him a Thing — we can plead no extenuation of the 
offence. The slave is only " guilty of a skin not 
colored like our own," — guilty of the misfortune 
to be weak and unprotected. For this he is de- 
prived of his hberty ; he and his children. 

Slavery is against nature. It has no foundation 
in the permanent nature of man, in the nature of 
things, none in the eternal Law of God, as Rea- 
son and Conscience declare that Law. Its foun- 
dation is the selfishness, the tyranny of strong men. 
We all know it is so — the little and the great. 
Better say it at once, and with Mr. Rutledge de- 
clare that Religion and Humanity have nothing to 
do v/ith the matter, than make the miserable 
pretence that it is consistent with Reason and 



106 LETTER OX SLAVERY. 

accordant with Chtistianity ; even the Boys know 
better. 

In the last century your fathers cried out to God 
against the oppressions laid on them by England, 
justly cried out. Yet those oppressions were 
but little things — a tax on sugar, parchment, paper, 
tea ; nothing but a tax, allowing no voice in the 
granting thereof or its spending. They went to war 
for an abstraction — the great doctrine of Human 
Rights. They declared themselves free, free by 
right of birth, free because born Men and child- 
ren of God. For the justice of their cause they 
made solemn appeal to God Most High. What 
was the oppression the fathers suffered, to this their 
sons commit ? It is no longer a question about Taxes 
and Representatives, a duty on sugar, parchment, 
paper, tea, but the liberty, the persons, the lives of 
three millions of INIen are in question. You have 
taken their libeily, their persons, and render their 
lives bitter by oppression. Was it right in your 
fathers to draw the sword and slay the oppressor, who 
taxed them for his own purpose, taking but their 
money, nor much of that ? Were your fathers noble 
men for their resistance ? when they fell in battle did 
they fall " in the sacred cause of God and their 
country ? " Do you build monuments to their mem- 
ory and write thereon, " Sacred to Liberty and 
the Rights of Mankind " ? Do you speak of Lex- 
ington and Bunker-Hill as spots most dear in the 



LETTEK ON SLAViiKY. 107 

soil of the New World, the Zioa of Freedom, the 
Thermopylae of universal Right ? Do you honor 
the name of "Washington far beyond all political 
names of Conqueror or King ? How then can you 
j ustify your oppression ? how refuse to admit that the 
bondmen of the United States have the same right, 
and a far stronger inducement to draw the sword 
and smile at your very life ? Surely you cannot do 
^rO, not in America ; never till Lexington and 
Bunker-Hill are wiped out of the earth ; never till 
the history of your own Revolution is forgot ; never 
till the names of the Adamses, of Jefferson, of 
Washington, is expunged from the memory of men. 

When the rude African who rules over Dahomey 
or the Gaboon country burns a village and plunders 
the shrieking children of his fellow barbarians to 
sell them away into bondage forever, far from 
their humble but happy homes and their luxuriant 
soil, their bread-fruit and their palms, fiar from 
father and mother, from child and lover, from all 
the human heart clings to with tenderest longing — 
vou are filled with horror at the deed. " What I 
steal a man," say you ; •* Great God,"' you ask, " is 
the Gaboon chieftain a man, or but a taller beast, 
with mind more cunning and far reaching claws ? " 
That chieftain is a barbarian. He knows not your 
letters, your laws, the tenets of your religion. The 
nobler nature of the man sleeps in his savage 



108 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

breast. His only plea is — his degradation. His 
defence before the world and before God is this : 
He is a savage, he knows no law but force, no 
right but only might alone. For that plea and 
defence the civilized man must excuse him, per- 
haps God holds him guiltless. 

But Avhen a civilized nation comes, with all the 
art and science which mankind has learned in the 
whole lifetime of the race, and steals the children 
of the defenceless, stimulating the savage to plun- 
der his brothers and make them slaves, the offence 
has no such excuse ; it is a conscious crime ; a 
"Wrong before the judgment of the nations; a Sin 
before God. 

In your case it is worse still ; the Autocrat of all 
the Russias may have no theory of man's unalien- 
able rights adverse to the Slavery he aims to abolish 
on his broad estates and wide-spread realm ; the 
Bey of Tunis deals not in abstractions, in universal 
laws, knows nothing of unalienable rights and the 
inborn equality of man. But you, the people of the 
United States ; you, a nation of free men, Avho 
owe allegiance to none ; you, a Republic, one of 
the foremost nations of the Earth ; you with your 
theories of human, universal justice ; you who earliest 
made national proclamation to mankind of human 
right, and those three political ideas whereon the 
great American commonwealth now stands and 
rests ; you who profess to form a government not 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 109 

on force, bat law, not on national traditioiii?, but 
abstract justice — the Nation's constant and perpet- 
ual Will to give to every one his constant and per- 
petual Right ; you who would found a State not on 
cannon balls — but Universal Laws, Thoughts of 
God, — what j)lea can you put forth in your defence ? 

You call yourselves Christians. It is your boast. 
"Christianity," say ihe courts, " is the Common Law 
of the land." You have a Religion which tells that 
God is the Father, equal, just and loving, to all 
manldnd, — the Redman, whom you murdered, 
and the Black man, whom you have laid in iron, 
hurting his feet with fetters. It tells you, all are 
brothers, African, American, Red-man, and Black 
and White. It tells you, as yom* highest duty, to 
love God with all your Heart ; to love his Justice, 
love his Mercy, love his Love ; to love that brother 
as yourself — the more he needs, to love him still 
the more ; that Avilhout such love for men there is 
no love for God. The Sacred Books of the na- 
tion — read in all pulpits, sworn over in all courts 
of Justice, borne even in your war-ships, and 
sheltered by the battle-flag of your armies — the 
sacred books of the nation, tell, that Jesus, the 
highest, dearest revelation of God to men, who loved 
them all, that He laid down his life for them, for 
all ; and bade you follow him ! What is a natural 
action in the Savage, a mere mistake in the des- 
10 



110 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

pot of Turkey or of Russia, with you becomes a 
conscious and fearful wrong. For you to hold 
your Brothers in bondage, to keep them from all 
chance of culture, growth in mind, or heart, or 
soul ; for you to breed them as swine, and beat 
as oxen ; to treat them as mere TmNGS, without 
soul, or Rights, — why, what Avas a mistake in 
political economy, a Avrong before your ideas of 
Government, becomes a Sin foul and heinous be- 
fore your ideas of Man, and Christ, and God. 

When you remember the intelligence of this age, 
its accumulated stores of Knowledge, Science, Art, 
and Wealth of Matter and of ]\Iind, its Knowledge 
of Justice and eternal Right ; when you consider 
that in political Ideas you stand the first people 
in the vanguard of mankind, now moving towards 
new and peaceful conquests for the human race ; 
when you reflect on the great doctrines of Univer- 
sal Right set forth in so many forms amongst you 
by the senator and the school-boy ; when you bring 
home to your bosoms the Religion whose sacred 
words are taught in that Bible, laid up in your 
churches, reverently kept in your courts of justice, 
carried under the folds of your flag over land and 
sea — that Bible, by millions multiplied and spread 
throughout the peopled Avorld in every barbarous 
and stammering tongue, — and then remember that 
Slavery is here ; that three million men are now 
by Christian Republican America held in bondage 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. Ill 

worse than Egyptian, hopeless as hell, — you must 
take this matter to heart, and confess that Ameri- 
can Slavery is the greatest, foulest Wrong which 
man ever did to man ; the most hideous and de- 
tested Sin a nation has ever committed before the 
just, all-bounteous God — a Wrong and a Sin 
wholly without excuse. 



CONCLUSION. 



Fellow-Citizens of America, 

Yoa see some of the effects of Slavery in your 
land. It costs you millions of dollars each year. 
If there had been no slaves in America for forty 
years, it is within bounds to say, your annual earn- 
ings would be three hundred million dollars more 
than now. It has cost you also millions of men. But 
for this curse, Virginia had been as populous as 
New York, as rich in wealth and intelligence ; 
without this the free men of the South mn.-t have 
increased as rapidly as in the North, and at this 
day, perhaps five-and-twenty million men would 
rejoice at their welfare in the United States. 
Slavery retards Industry in all its forms ; lie Edu- 
cation of the people in all its forms, intellectual, 
moral and religious. It hinders the application of 
those great political Ideas of America ; hinders the 
Development of mankind, the Organization of the 
Rights of INIan in a worthy State, Society, or 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 113 

Church. Such effects are the Divine Sentence 
against the Cause thereof. 

It is not for me to point out the Remedy for the 
evil, and show how it can be ajDphed ; that is work 
for those men you dignify Avith place and power. 
I pretend not to give counsel here, only to tell the 
warning truth. Will you say, that in the free 
States also there is Oppression, Ignorance, and 
Want and Crime ? 'Tis true. But an excuse, 
specious and popular, for its continuance, is this : 
that the evils of Slavery are so much worse, men 
will not meddle with the less till the greater is re- 
moved. I\Ien are so wonted to this monstrous 
wrong, they cannot see the little wrongs with 
which modern society is full ; evils, which are little 
only when compared to that. When this shame of 
the nation is wiped off, it \vill be easy, seeing more 
clearly, to redress the minor ills of Ignorance and 
Want and Crime. But there is one bright thing 
connected with this Wrong. I mean the Heroism 
Avhicli wars against it with pure hands ; historic 
times have seen no chivalry so heroic. 

Not long ago Europe and the whole Christian 
Avorld rung with indignation at the outrage said to be 
offered, by the Russian government, to some Polish 
nuns who were torn from their home, driven from 
place to place, brutally beaten, and vexed with 
continual torments. Be the story false or true, the 
10* 



114 LETTER ON SLAVERY. 

ears of men tingled at the tale. But not one of the 
nuns Avas sold. Those wrongs committed against 
a few defenceless women are doubled, trebled in 
America, and here continually applied to thou- 
sands of American women. This is no fiction ; a 
plain fact, and notorious ; but whose ears tingle ? 
Is it worse to abuse a few white Avomen in Russia, 
than a nation of black women in America ? Is 
that worse for a European than this for the demo- 
cratic Republicans of America ? The truth must 
be spoken ; the voice of the Bondman's blood cries 
out to God against us; His justice shall make 
reply. How can America ask mercy, Avho has 
never shown it there ? 

Civilization extends everywhere : the Russian 
and the Hottentot feel its influence. Christian men 
send the Bible to every island in the Pacific sea. 
Plenty becomes general ; famine but rare. The 
Arts advance, the useful, the beautiful, with rapid 
steps. Machines begin to dispense with human 
drudgery. Comfort gets distributed through their 
influence, more widely than ancient benefactors 
dared to dream. What were luxuries to our 
fathers, attainable only by the rich, now find their 
way to the humble home. War — the old Demon 
which once possessed each strong nation, making 
it deaf and blind, but yet exceeding fierce, so that 
no feebler one could pass near and be safe — War 



LETTER ON SLAVERY. 115 

is losing his hold of the Human Race, the Devil 
getting cast out by the finger of God. The Day of 
Peace begins to dawn upon mankind, wandering so 
long in darkness, and watching for that happy Star. 
Science, Letters, Religion, break down the barriers 
betwixt man and man, 'iwixt class and class. The 
obstacles which severed nations once now join 
them. Trade mediates between land and land — 
the gold entering wiiere steel could never force its 
way. New powers arc developed to hasten the 
humanizing work ; they post o'er land and ocean 
without rest, or serve our bidding while they stand 
and wait. The very lightning comes down, is 
caught, and made the errand-boy of the nations. 
Steamships are shooting across the ocean, weaving 
East and West in one united web. The soldier 
yields to the merchant. The man-child of the old 
world, young but strong, carries bread to his Father 
in the hour of need. The ambassadors of Science, 
Letters and the Arts, come from the old world to 
reside near the court of the New, telHng truth 
for the common welfare of all. The Genius of 
America sends also its first fruits and a Scion of its 
own green tree, a token of future blessings, to the 
parent land. These things help the great synthesis 
of the Human Race, the Reign of Peace on Earth, 
of Good-will amongst all men. 

Everywhere in the old world the Poor, the Igno- 
rant and the Oppressed, get looked after as never 



116 LETTER ON >r.\VESY. 

before. The Hero of Force is falling behind the 
times : the Hero of Thought, of Love, is felt to deserve 
the homage of Mankind. The Pope of Rome himself 
essays the Eef-— — -■" " of Italy ; the King of Den- 
mark sets free - 5 in his dominions, East and 
"West ; the Eussian Emperor liberates his serfs 
from the milder bondage of the Sclavonian race : 
his brother monarch of Tctrkey will have no slave- 
market in the Mahometan metropolis, no shambles 
there for human desh : the Bey of Tnnis cazmc: 
bear a slave ; it grieves his Islamitish heart, swanby 
Afric-an though he be. 

Yet am-id aU this continual advance, America, 
the first of the forem'Ost nations to proclaim Eqcal- 
ity, and Homau Rights inborn with all; the first 
confessedly to form a State on Nature's Law — 
America restores Barbarism. ; will still hold slaves. 
More despotic than Rossia. more bar barons than 
the chieftain of Barbary. she estabUshies Ferocity 
by federal Law. There is suffering enough amongst 
the "Weak and Poor in the cities of the free labo- 
rioos North. England has her misery patent to 
the eye, and Ireland her looped and windowed rag- 
redness, her lean and brutal want. So it b every- 
where ; there is sadness amid all the splendors of 
modem science and civflizatioo, thoogh lar less 
tiian ever before. But amidst the Els of C" -"^ - ■ 
dom, the oddest and most giiastly spec* :, _ 
earth is American Slavery. The mbery of me ci 



" ' grows less and less : the Mosster-ri-i-e oi 

.:.ca, To make itself more awful yet, most dzzs 

our cannon to invade new lands. 

I hare addressed voa as cit iz en *. Members of tiie 

^tate. I cannot forget that yoa are men: are 
v.emters of ibe great Brotherhood of yian, tii^A- 
:fn of the one and blessed God. w^fafoee eqoal 
Love has onlj made to tiess ik all. who wiH 
not snffer Wrong to pass trithoot its doe. Think o£ 
the nation's deed, done eootinnaI!v and afresfc. 
God shall hear the voice of votrr Broiher's bl-3od. 
Ic«ig crying from the groand : His Jostice asks too 
even now : A>tE3iCA. -w-Exaz s tht Bsctthes ? 
This is the answer which America most ^ive : •• I». 
he is there in tbe Rice-swamps of the Socth. in her 
fiel is teeming with Cotton and the lanniant Caae. 
He was weak and I seized him : naked and I 
bonnd him : ignorant, poor and savage, and I over- 
inastered him. I laid on his feefaler shoolders mv 
grievous yoke. I have chained him with my fet- 
ters : beat him with my whip. Other tyrants bad 
dcr.iinicn over him. but my finger was thicker than 
their loins. I have branded the nsark of my power. 
with red-hot iron upon his human desh. I am fed 
with his toil : fet, v^i^uptnocs ca his sweat, and 
:-: - ~ - ■ ' blood. I stole the Father, siole :'- " - - - 
^ - ' set them to toil : his "Wife and D; _ 
are a pleasant spoil to me. Behead the ciii-dren 



lis LETTER ON SLAVEKY. 

also of thy servant and his Handmaidens — sons 
swarthier than their sire. Askest Thou for tlie 
African ? I found him a Barbarian. I have made 
him a Beast. Lo, there thou hast what is thine." 

That Voice shall speak again : "America, why 
dost thou use him thus — thine equal, born Avith 
Rights the same as thine ? " 

America, m.ay answer : " Lord, I knew not the 
negro had a Right to freedom. I rejoiced to eat' 
the labors of the slave ; my great men. North and 
South, they told me Slavery was no wrong ; I knew 
no better, but believed their word, for they are 
great, O Lord, and excellent." 

That same Voice may answer yet again, quoting 
the nation's earliest and most patriotic words : 
" 'All men are created equal, and endowed by their 
Creator with unalienable Rights — the Right to 
Life, to Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.' 
America, what further falsehood wilt thou speak" ? 

The Nation may reply again : " True Lord, aU 
that is written in the nation's creed, writ by my 
greatest spirits in their greatest hour. But since 
then, why, holy men have come and told me in thy 
name that Slavery was good ; was right ; that Thou 
thyself didst once establish it on earth, and He who 
spoke thy words, spoke nought against this thing. 
I have believed these men, for they are holy men 
O Lord, and excellent." 

Then may that Judge of all the Earth take down 



LETTER OX SLAVERY. 119 

the Gospel from the pulpit's desk, and read these few 
plain words : ** Thoa shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart ; and thou shall love thy neighbor 
as thyself. Whatsoever ye would that others should 
do to you, do also even so to them." 

Further might He speak and say : '' W 
poor Mussulman, whom thou calls't Pag;... ....^ 

shuts'! out from Heaven — sets free all men, how 
much more art thou thyself condemned ; yea, by the 
Bible which thou sendest to the outcasts of the 
world ? " 

Across tlie Stage of Time the nations pass in the 
solemn pomp of their historical procession ; what 
kingly forms sweep by, leading the nations of the 
past, the present age I Let them pass — their 
mingled good and ill. A great People now comes 
forth, the newest born of nations, the latest Hope 
of Mankind, the Heir of sixty centuries — the 
Bridegroom of the virgin West. First come those 
PiLGRLMs. few and far between, who knelt on the 
sands of a "wilderness, whose depth they knew not, 
nor yet its prophecy, who meekly trusting in their 
God, in want and war, but wanting not in Faith, 
laid with their prayers the deep foundations of the 
State and Church. Then follow more majestic 
men, bringing great Truths for all Mankind, seized 
from the heaven of thought, or caught, ground- 
lightning, rushing from the earth : and on their ban- 



i/ V/ */; 




ion \(£>V^''i 

120 LETTER OX SLAVERY. * 

nevs have they writ these words : Equality and 
LNBORN Rights. Then comes the one with ven- 
erable face, who ruled alike the Senate and the 
Camp, and at whose feet the attendant years spread 
garlands, laurel-wreaths, calliug him First in War, 
and First in Peace, and First in his Country's Heart, 
as it in his. Then follow men bearing the first 
fruits of our toil, the wealth of sea and land, the 
labors of the loom, the stores of commerce and the 
arts. A happy People comes, some with shut Bibles 
ill their hands, some with the nation's Laws, some 
uttering those mighty Truths Avhich God has writ 
on Man, and men have copied into golden Avords. 
Then comes, to close this long historic pomp, — the 
panorama of the w^orld — the Negro Slave, bought, 
branded, beat. 

I remain your fellow-citizen and friend, 

Theodore Parker. 

Boston, December 22, 1817. 



'^^■*rT>l>'^>^^ 



